#at least by the time we get to sasuke's dad leading things. they seemed fine when madara joined with the village | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dianapana · 3 years

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SH Day 6: Marriage Agreement: ‘Til Our Contract Do Us Part

@sasuhinamonth

Hello dears, this prompt is composed of an older story that I changed a bit here and there and finished just now (it’s somewhat finished as in the ending isn’t too open, but it is open enough for me to continue if I ever wish to). I was very excited to finally use it after having it in my docs for idk maybe a year or so. It’s veeery long compared to what I usually write for these prompts but it just didn’t feel right to split it into parts anywhere.

~Love, Dia

Modern AU, OOC

Champaign

Hinata couldn’t help but sigh in relief when the waiters started walking around with trays full of Champaign glasses, it meant that the speech and toast part would come soon, that was her dad’s way of ending these events, thanking everyone for coming. Usually after the toast people drank their glasses quite fast and they all shook hands with Hiashi before leaving, considering there were about a hundred people around that would take about another hour. She made it thought the preparations for the event and the event itself which took over 7 hours, the worst parts ended, she will survive the goodbyes.

Once the trays were all empty and everyone had a glass in hand Hiashi walked to the middle of the room at what seemed to be the slowest speed possible. Everyone was watching him, nobody dared talk. For most people this wasn’t their first Hyuuga Event and they knew how things worked, and even those that attended it for the first time were smart enough to follow everyone’s lead and stay quiet.

Finally reaching his usual spot Hiashi rose his glass and started speaking. Hinata sent a small prayer to the heavens wishing the speech to be short.

“I want to start by thanking everyone for coming over tonight, especially in such a short notice” it was indeed short notice, Hyuuga events happen 2 times a year on the 20th March and 23rd September; spring and fall equinox. But Hiashi decided a month ago that a mid-June event needed to be held this year. Nobody knew why. “I hope everyone had a pleasant time today, from our oldest friends,” Hiashi said turning to the Nara and Yamanaka leaders “to our newest friends” his eyes moved to Fugaku Uchiha “and everyone in between”

Hiashi started talking about the notion of friendship and how important bonds are in ‘our world’. Hinata could tell the speech would be a long one, and with every bullshit word coming out of her father’s mouth she wanted to roll her eyes. But she couldn’t. The elders were watching her every move, Neji and Hanabi were in the same position, having eyes on them at all times. They all had to smile and nod and act like these events are their favourite place to be, no matter how big of a lie that was. She was tired, the servant woke her up at 5 in the morning to start getting ready, her father didn’t agree with the first two dresses she had put on, the putting on and taking off, took her about 2 hours in total and was extremely exhausting despite the help from the servants. The preparations for the event also took longer than usual. Her father kept telling her how important it was for her to behave. Hinata had never been the one to cause problems during such events, no matter how much she hated them, but for some reasons, it was her that was always given the longest lectures.

The windows were open at least and the night summer wind gently blew inside. The dress Hiashi approved of was a deep red long evening gown. All the skirt layers were extremely heavy and she had been standing on high heels for longer than it should be humanly possible, the corset was so tightly tied, at times she’d have issues breathing and to top it all off the dress had long lace sleeves which were sticking to her skin. It had not been a fun dress to wear in the middle of a heatwave. Her mind was still drifting in space when all of a sudden, her father stopped talking.

“I know many of you have been wondering the reason for this event and we shall let you know. Fugaku would you mind joining me?” The Uchiha leader went to the centre of the room as well. Whispers started going around the crowd, nothing like that had ever happened before. Hinata looked to Neji trying to see if he was aware of any of that, but her cousin would not make eye contact with her. Neji’s head was lowered, his fist was clenched and the hand around the glass was white-knuckled, it was a miracle the glass hadn’t shattered in a million pieced from his grip. Neji was aware of what was about to happen and he was not pleased.

“Today is the first time in over 100 years when the Hyuuga and the Uchiha families meet in peace at an event such as this. The bond between the two is alone a motif to celebrate but we must do everything in our power to keep this bond as strong as we can which is why we have decided to bind the families together thought marriage.” Hiashi’s voice boomed with pride. The crowd’s whispers grew in intensity. Hinata looked at Hanabi, both girls looking shocked and even scared. Hanabi wanted to reach out and hold her older sister’s hand. Grip it tight and pray that they both get over this event intact, but before she could make a move Hiashi started speaking again. “Hinata, my daughter would you please come here”

All eyes turned to her. Her heart beat a thousand times per second, despite her sudden fear her body moved gracefully, her mind was in utter chaos but her body knew the drill, it obeyed whatever her father told her to do. As she was passing by people, a familiar hand gripped her for a moment, trying to say so many is such a small touch. Ino, her best friend, tried to give her all the strength she had, she wanted to assure her everything will be fine, and also thought that touch she said sorry. She said goodbye. Hinata reached her father’s side and turned towards the people. She had never been in the front of the ballroom before, had never had all the eyes on her. Hiashi put his hand on her shoulder and smiled at her, the kind of smile she had never seen before. The smile she had wished to see as a child, there was pride and content in it, but it only made Hinata’s heart break further. The emotions were not directed at her as a human, he was not proud of her, his pride came from finally finding it, a way to get rid of her. He had married her off.

“Sasuke my son, come!” Fugaku’s command was just as loud and even stiffer. Hinata found Ino’s eyes in the crowd. Her friend was crying silent tears. Seeing Ino cry made Hinata oddly detached. It was a strange sensation, she almost felt like her soul had left the body and she was watching from somewhere far away all of this happening to somebody else. The Hyuuga girl moved her eyes from her friend to the man walking towards them. Her future husband.

Once the young Uchiha stood in place Hiashi raised his glass and finished the toast. “To my beautiful daughter and her fiancé,” they cheered for her. They drank for her. And yet she didn’t. The Champaign glass was still full. She was lost… not in thought, her mind was blank but she wasn’t present either.

“Look alive princess” Came a voice from her right. Sasuke took her glass and finished it in one gulp. He placed both his and her glasses on the tray of a waiter and took her hand and kissed the back of it. People gasped and whispered. He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. With her on heels, his mouth came to her ear. “Smile sunshine. This is supposed to be the happiest day of your life. Fool them all” His voice was oddly gentle and it broke something in her. She would have cried but Sasuke was right; she had a part to play. Taking a small breath in Hinata fell in character.

Hiashi told them to do the honours and say goodbye to everyone, after all that was their engagement party. Hinata looked up at the man she would spend her life with and gave him a sweet and shy smile, she even managed to make herself blush when he smiled back at him. She smiled and blushed whenever someone congratulated them or made a comment about their engagement. From time to time, she’d steal a glance at Sasuke and look at him with what she hoped came across as admiration. They made eye contact a few times, he winked at her twice. They were both playing their parts flawlessly. One could not tell that they had never met before, that they were not indeed lovers. Fugaku called Sasuke to him and Hinata was left alone to say goodbye to the guests. A few older ladies praised her for being able to catch such a handsome husband.

The next in line was Gaara. Hinata’s heart broke a little more upon seeing him. He too looked sad, which her brain turned to something else despite knowing it not to be true. Her feelings for Gaara had not gone away as she had hoped they would after finding out that he was in a secret relationship. “I am sorry Hinata” He whispered as he kissed her cheek. There was nothing either of them could do, people were waiting in line to talk to her after Gaara. Her father and fiancé were in front. Hinata smiled and thanked him just as she had everyone else. Gaara would not save her, he couldn’t and even if he could…he wouldn’t.

Ino was one of the last people to come talk to her. She had gone to the bathroom to pull herself together after crying. The blonde was stronger than that, but she had cried for Hinata because at that moment Hinata could not afford to cry. The Yamanaka girl hugged her tightly and whispered in her ear encouragements that they both knew would not help.

Everyone had left but the Uchiha family and the main Hyuuga family. Even the Hyuuga elders had seen themselves out. Habani was nowhere to be seen. Neji, her father, Sasuke, Fugaku and Sasuke’s elder brother Itachi were all talking among themselves. To the side was Mikoto, Sasuke’s mom. Hinata was still by the door; now that everyone had left, she was unsure of what to do, under normal circumstances she would be allowed to leave and go to her room, but her father hadn’t dismissed her yet. The Uchiha woman looked to her, smiled and started walking towards her.

“You look lovely dear. I’ve been keeping my eye on you the whole event but Fugaku would not allow me to come and talk to you sooner. Come dear let’s sit down and gossip while the men talk business”. The two women walked to the first table and sat down next to each other. “The event was so long; I thought your father would never make his speech. It must have been hard for you too, staying all those hours on high heels and in that dress, what were the servants thinking giving you such a heavy and warm dress to wear; do they not know it’s summer?” Mikoto went on about trivia things a moment longer. Hinata had yet to say a word, however, her future mother-in-law didn’t seem to mind her silence, for she filled it with mindless talk.

“I know it’s a difficult time for you,” The woman said and took Hinata’s hands in hers. “They were unfair to you, they should have let you know earlier.” Mikoto touched a strand of Hinata’s hair. “You have nothing to fear. We are a good family. My son will take care of you. It will take a while for you to adjust I know, but this is not the end of the world.”

Hinata opened her mouth to say something but found her throat was so dry she couldn’t say anything. After clearing her throat, she tried again. “Will I be leaving with you tonight?” the idea of leaving tonight and not being able to say goodbye to anyone was unboreable.

“No sweetheart. The Uchiha is an old family with old traditions, you will move in with Sasuke only on the night of the wedding. It is a sin to live under the same roof before that.” Hinata nodded. At least she still had some time before that.

“When is the wedding?”

It was easy to see Mikoto was an affectionate person, she moved her chair to be closer to Hinata and hugged her. Something about the woman put her at ease, her voice and hair reminded her of Hikari, her own mother, it was a strange feeling. “The wedding will be in three months. Before that we have to pick a dress, everything else has been pretty much done, you can look over everything and make the last-minute decisions. Of course you and Sasuke will spend some time together to get to know each other and-“.She was cut off by Sasuke himself when he addressed her “Mother” Mikoto squeezed her harder one more time before letting Hinata go. The woman got to her feet and kissed Sasuke’s cheek. “Goodbye Hinata, I will see you soon dear”

She and Sasuke were now alone. He took a seat in the chair Mikoto had emptied. For a moment they didn’t talk. It was all moving along too fast for Hinata to comprehend. Just under 2 hours ago, all she wanted was the event to end so she could sleep. Nothing could have prepared her for the change her life took. It almost felt like it wasn’t real; or that it was all happening to someone else. She had not made a single decision about this.

“Tomorrow I’ll come and we will have lunch together and talk more. It has been a full and exhausting day.” His voice was just as gentle as it was when he whispered to her before. “What would you prefer we eat? I will make reservations ahead of time”

“Anything will do, I don’t mind” Hinata answered. She appreciated that he didn’t want to ‘get to know each other’ then and there. She was indeed tired and needed to think about everything a little more, in order to realize that it was all indeed real. Looking up at Sasuke she had to say she was lucky; he was very good looking and so far, had shown her kindness. If what his mother said was true her destiny wasn’t as cruel as it could have been.

He got up and extended his hand for her to take, which she did. Hand in hand they walked back to where both families were still discussing. Neji would still not look at her, Itachi offered her a kind smile, Fugaku only a nod.

“I see that the two of you hit it off.” Her father said, it appeared he was really happy with the arrangements. Sasuke nodded to her dad. Hinata was certain that if Hiashi had his way she would leave with the Uchihas that very moment and never return.

“Hinata is tired, it is quite late so we should go. I will return tomorrow at noon in order to take her out for lunch Hyuuga-san.” Sasuke had not asked permission to take her out. He had simply stated that he would. That was the moment she realized her father was no longer the one to command her. Sasuke was. She wasn’t sure if what she felt was fear or excitement.

“Yes of course. Hinata you may leave” Hiashi said but Hinata didn’t move for Sasuke was still holding onto her hand.

“I will walk her to her quarter.” Hinata barely had time to bow to what would soon be her family before Sasuke started pulling her along. “In my presence you will not follow his word. My word is absolute, his is barely wind blowing by you.” Sasuke appeared to be annoyed by the fact that her father dismissed her. “If he says go but I am standing still, you too will stay unless I decide we will leave”

“Yes.” She knew how their world worked; despite them living in the 21rst century where women were seen as equals more and more every day, their world stopped evolving. The husband was the ultimate master while the woman was a possession. First, she was owned by her father, then by her husband.

They walked quite fast when leaving the ballroom, but once they were out of sight Sasuke slowed his steps. He was aware of the difficulty of walking in heels, his mother always made sure to complain about it. Her hand in his felt small and fragile, he had never been given something to take care of, sometimes that was his and his alone. He had been against the marriage at first. He wanted to wait until he was the Uchiha head later in life before taking a wife but his father insisted, he needed to marry young and have heirs because Itachi could not. His older brother had been his father’s favourite from a young age; that was until Itachi was 18 and Sasuke 13, about 10 years ago. On his 18thbirthday Itachi gave up his title as the heir in a very public way only to than later inform his father that not only does he not want to be head but he would not be fit for the role, for he could never give heirs to the clan. Itachi’s infertility came as a shock to the whole family. Sasuke was tested as well as soon as possible but thankfully the tests proved that he would be able to have children.

Fugaku had learned in the past 10 years to accept Sasuke as his heir, his relationship with his father was better now than it had ever been, but even so they were not as close as Itachi had been with him. But Fugaku put in all his efforts to try to make Sasuke the best, he taught him everything he could and allowed Sasuke to do as he pleases as long as what he did would be useful to the family. So, when he informed Sasuke he had picked a wife for him it came to no surprise that he had chosen a girl from a very important family, a family even older than the Uchihas and just as influential. The girl was known among her people as an angel and was believed to be the most beautiful Hyuuga girl to ever be, so of course, Fugaku wanted her for his own heir.

Upon seeing Hinata for the first time that night Sasuke had concluded the rumours had not been false. He had not been disappointed in the slightest. He was actually impressed. He expected two outcomes: either the girl to cry and make a fuss about the marriage or to be the ditzy kind of girl he had seen around that throws herself at him. She had been neither. For the shortest moment she had faltered and shown her true feelings, disbelief and numbness, but she pulled herself together as soon as he spoke to her. She had acted and played her part perfectly.

The pavement was old and uneven towards the main house. Almost nothing had been altered from the time the house was built, only maintained, so cracks and unevenness in the pathways happened. Hinata was trying her best to walk over them in her heels. Normally by that point in the night, she would take her heels off but she was not alone. Noticing her slowing down Sasuke stopped.

“Would you want me to carry you?” The offer was unexpected and it made Hinata quiet for a moment which Sasuke took as ‘yes’. He slightly bent and placed an arm under her knees and the other around her back. On instinct, Hinata placed both her hands on his shoulders to steady herself.

“You didn’t have to do that” Despite saying that she was thankful. Her feet were killing her.

“How high are your heels?”

“About 6 inches. Why?”

“6 inches and I’m still 6 inches taller than you.” He made a humming sound. Hinata didn’t know what he was thinking but she didn’t try to figure it out either. It was hard enough trying to figure out what she was feeling, there was no energy or time to uncover the mysteries of Sasuke’s mind. Her body was tired but her brain was even more exhausted. At this point not really caring anymore, she placed her head on his shoulder and just enjoyed the ride. Upon getting to the main house Hinata instructed him to go to the 2nd floor to the left. There was a guard outside her door that did not stop him from entering her room but actually held the door open for him. Two servants were inside waiting to help her undress and wash before going to bed. Sasuke put her on the edge of her bed.

“Thank you for bringing me here.” Hinata said. She felt a bit shy now, not really knowing how to say goodbye to him. This was the first time a man beside her dad and Neji entered her room. Not even the guards were allowed inside.

“Goodnight Hinata, I will see you tomorrow” Sasuke said, he kissed the back of her hand once more and left. Not waiting for her reply. Once again, a choice was made for her that day, but she was grateful for it this time.

The servants were gossiping about her fiancé and how gentle and beautiful he was, about how he had looked at her and how he had carried her like she was the most precious thing in the world. They guided her to her feet and to the full-length mirror to the side of her bed.

All their words were flying around her but none of them really registered; her brain was still not processing much of anything. She was still in the ballroom holding her Champaign glass praying for her dad’s speech to be short.

The servants untied her corset and Hinata took in her first deep breath in what felt like ages. They peeled off her sleeves and pulled the skirt away from her body. She was left in her underwear and heels in front of the full-length mirror. Her arms were splotchy and red from place to place from the itchy lace, her breasts and abdomen had red traces from where the corset was too tight on her. Her panties were red to match the dress, her legs were white and smooth but they were barely holding her at that point in the high heels, they were visibly shaking. Her eyes moved back up over every inch of naked skin until it reached her face. She wasn’t sure what she expected to see there, maybe something different. Some kind of evidence of the announcement from that night, but everything looked just as it did that morning.

One of the servants had just finished putting the dress away for it to be cleaned the next day, while the other filled her bathtub with hot water, salts and oils. Hinata would usually take off her heels and walk on her own to the bath but she was still looking at herself in the mirror, her eye make-up wasn’t smudged at all, her lipstick had gone after eating and drinking halfway through the event, so she excused herself to the bathroom several hours ago to take it off, her updo had lost some of its volume and a few strands had fallen around her face. She was too close to the mirror, her image being all she saw. Hinata took a few steps back and tried to picture Sasuke next to her naked body. They would make a beautiful couple even she could admit that.

Not being able to stomach the image she had in her head anymore the Hyuuga girl finally turned around and sat on the bed for a moment to take her heels off. She walked to the bathtub and took off her underwear as well and lowered herself in the hot water. Her head was resting on a soft towel; one of the servants started taking her make-up off and cleaning her face with scrubs and putting gels on her face and gently massaging everything in.

“Haruhi, could you please put some music on?” Hinata asked the servant that was not busy at the time. A moment later soft music started playing in the background. Once the facial massage was done a charcoal mask was applied to her face and finally, her hair was taken from the updo. Mina, the servant washing her poured some warm water on her head in such a way as not to get it on her mask. Her hair was shampooed twice and conditioned and rinsed and finally, put in a towel.

Haruhi came to help with washing her body, they scrubbed at her neck, collarbones, arms, hands, breasts, back and every other part of her. Her body was rinsed and washed again, more gently with moisturizing lavender soap and rinsed again. Her facemask was taken off, the water drained from the tub and she stepped out of it allowing the servants to towel her off. Mina placed a large towel over her bedsheets and Hinata laid on her back and enjoyed as both her servants massaged every part of her body with more oils, once they were done on one side she turned on to her front and they started to work again.

Her massage was almost done when Hanabi busted through her door. Hinata lazily opened her eyes, she was tired and finally relaxed, thus on the edge of falling asleep. Her sister was in her night attire, her hair still wet from her own bath most likely. Her eyes were red, she must have cried, but she looked angry at the moment. Hinata’s servants did not stop their massage despite the company of her sister.

“How can you stay there and enjoy your massage?” Hinata asked sounding astonished.

“You had enjoyed your bath time, why shouldn’t I?” Despite all of Hinata’s efforts over the years she and Hanabi weren’t as close as she wanted. Hanabi had always resented her for being older, the firstborn, the heir. When Hanabi was 3 and Hinata 7 the younger spent her days playing and reading stories and being watched by the elder women while Hinata was studying with the men. Hanabi had asked once why that was the case and an elder said “Your sister is the heir. She has to know how to be a leader, while you my dear, you will be a wife to someone” Despite that incident, things slowly started changing over the years, Hinata lost her father’s favour and Hanabi was taught leadership skills while Hinata was toughed to cook. Despite the obvious manner in which Hiashi favoured her now, Hanabi had always felt jealous of her sister, for she always believed what that old woman said to her in her childhood, she resented Hinata for she was to be the one that would not be married off. What an irony.

“Why aren’t you upset?” Hanabi’s voice was breaking and she was shaking. “Why aren’t you angry?” her fists were clenched and she looked like she wanted to start a riot. “Why aren’t you in dad’s office demanding he change his mind?”

“There’s nothing to change Hanabi.” Hinata finally got up and gestured to the servants to leave. She took the towel and put it around her body as the two bowed and left the room, left the sisters to talk among themselves. “Dad did it in such a way that it cannot be undone.” Hinata walked to her closet looking for something to wear to bed. “He didn’t tell me before so I couldn’t contest it, and now I can’t. Everyone that matters in this world knows about it. Unless I have a good reason, a very good one, there’s nothing that can stop this. In three months I will not be here anymore” Hinata finally picked a silk shorts and tanktop combo and put it on. “And you little sister.” The older one said as she walked towards her sister “You will be a Hyuuga forever, this will be the only house you know, these will be your people.” Hinata wanted to finish her sentence with ‘just as you’ve always wanted’ but stopped herself short.

Hanabi was crying again. She had prayed and wished to be the one to stay for so many years. But she had never thought about her sister leaving. She had always been bitter and held Hinata at a distance even when the older one tried to make the gap between them disappear. She had never taken the opportunity to get to know Hinata, and now she couldn’t.

“I’m sorry.” Hanabi said and hugged Hinata. They hadn’t hugged in ages. This time it was Hinata who pushed away.

“It’s over for today. I have not yet realized that this is not a dream. We will speak tomorrow. I’m going to bed now” She was a bit angry at Hanabi for only now trying to act like a sister. She had tried before that evening too, right before Hinata’s name was called, but even then it was in a moment of weakness, of fear, it wasn’t out of love or care. For most of her life Hinata tried to convince herself that she was fine with the way her and Hanabi’s relationship was, after trying for a few years to bond with her and being rejected, Hinata became content with what they had because she believed Hanabi not to be able to connect on a deeper level. She didn’t connect with Neji or Hiashi either. But seeing that she is indeed able of that connection, that she just didn’t want it before, hurt her more than Hinata would ever admit.

Hanabi left and Mina and Haruhi peeked in Hinata’s room. “Good night Himata-hime” they said in union and Hinata wished them a goodnight as well. Them calling her hime reminded her of the way Sasuke had called her Princess. ‘Smile sunshine. Fool them all’ he had said. And she did. She smiled and fooled them.

Now that her head was finally on her pillow, hair still damp, sheets cool and comforting, the room dark and quiet she allowed herself to admit a few things out loud. “I am getting married. I will be an Uchiha. Sasuke will be my husband.” The silence in the room was deafening “I am scared.” A little voice in the back of her brain whispered ‘I am excited’ but she didn’t say it out loud. With those thoughts in mind, she fell asleep.

________________________________

The next morning felt normal. She woke up, brushed her teeth, washed her face, got dressed and went downstairs for breakfast. She didn’t feel different. Upon reaching the dining room she realized for once she was the last to arrive. Hanabi was in her seat looking upset, Neji was frowning at his phone and her dad was reading something on his pad. That is what the house would look like in three months. She moved from the doorframe and all eyes turned to her. Hanabi still looked sad, Neji looked sorry and her dad was happy. Hinata walked around the table and sat in her chair.

“Good morning sunshine. How did you sleep?” Hiashi had stopped calling her sunshine when she was 4 years old and Hikari died.

“I slept very well, how about you father?”

“I did as well”

Neji was looking at Hinata almost expecting her to cry or scream. He was looking at her face trying to find proof of tears from the night before, but her face wasn’t red or puffy. She looked well-rested.

The breakfast was finally brought for them to eat and they did so in silence. Hiashi was the first to finish and instead of leaving to go do work as he would normally, he started talking.

“Sasuke will be here at noon. You should start getting ready after breakfast” Hiashi too wanted to test his daughter and see how she would address the situation. He wanted to know if he had to give her a lecture about her behaviour around the Uchiha heir.

“Yes, I know. I already thought of what I want to wear. I will change and come seek your approval as I would for an event.” Hinata said between bites. “He didn’t mention where we were going but he did say he will make reservations so I am assuming it is a dressy place despite being a lunch date”

Everyone was taken aback by her answer. Hinata had not lied, she slept very well and woke up early. She accepted her fate almost entirely, she picked what she wanted to wear and even thought about a few things she wanted to ask Sasuke. In all truthfulness, she was a bit excited but was trying to keep her expectations low, that way she would not be disappointed if this change was not for the better. The only thing she didn’t particularly like about this was not seeing Ino and Neji. They were her best friends despite Neji’s behaviour in those 2 days.

Seeing as nobody spoke anymore Hinata excused herself and went to her room to start getting ready. It was only 9 in the morning. Sasuke would only come in about 3 hours but there wasn’t much else she could do.

She didn’t even reach her closet to take out the outfit she had thought of wearing when Neji came into her room. He walked to her and bowed. “I’m sorry” he was apologizing for not telling her, for not being able to stop it, for the way he treated her.

“It’s ok Neji. Everything could have been worse.” She wasn’t lying. She heard of many girls that had married old and abusive men. Their whole life they were raped and beaten. She didn’t know Sasuke at all but from the 2 interactions she had with him, he didn’t appear like he would hit her. Mikoto too seemed nice enough. “What is one prison exchanged for another?” She wasn’t allowed to do much in the Hyuuga household anyways, read and study. She was a bit eager to see if she had a bit more freedom as an Uchiha and if not, she was already used to being a caged bird.

“I couldn’t convince uncle not to do that. The bond with the Uchihas was apparently necessary. And Fugaku requested you to marry his son. Uncle couldn’t deny a direct request like that. Plus...” Neji decided to stop there.

“Plus, dad would rather Hana be the leader.” Hinata continued what Neji wouldn’t say. “I know that Neji. I’ve known that for a while now.”

“If one of the leaders were to request to marry you as well uncle might need to reconsider” He didn’t sound sure at all.

“He wouldn’t change his mind. The relationship with the Uchihas is more important to him than any other family at the moment. In addition, nobody would risk their bond with both us and the Uchihas for my hand in marriage” Hinata absently replied while looking through her collection of necklaces while sitting at her vanity.

“If we ask Gaara maybe-“

“He wouldn’t. and I would never ask him either” Yesterday she might have jumped up at the idea of marring Gaara. But something changed and made her realize her feelings for Gaara were never really for the man, but the freedom he represented. Gaara was her friend, he was a leader and if he would have been her husband, he would have offered her the most freedom a woman can have in their world. “I would never ask your boyfriend to marry me” Hinata said this while watching Neji’s face in the mirror.

Her cousin blushed and looked alarmed. “You are mistaken Hina-“

“Stop” I know I’m not. Her eyes softened. “It took me a while to realize but I did. And I confirmed my suspicions when I told Gaara about my feelings a few months ago and he said he was in love with someone himself. I asked why he wasn’t marrying this girl and he replying that his relationship was taboo. I thought she was a married woman maybe, a commoner. But it clicked when I saw him look at you.” Neji was still not moving or breathing.

“I will not tell anyone about the two of you Neji. It is nobody’s business but yours.” She got up from the vanity and walked to him and hugged him. “For what is worth…I wish you both happiness.” She knew that their relationship would not be accepted in their world and her heart wept for both cousin and her friend. The world was cruel. “I hope you find a way to be happy and free” She wanted that for herself too. Happiness and freedom to find who she was and then be herself.

Neji hugged her back. “That means the world to me Hinata.” He sighed long and his body felt like it was deflating. “I hadn’t realized how it would feel to hear the words from someone other than him or me. How much I wanted someone to validate the way I feel” Neji took a step back and kissed her forehead. “I wish you happiness and freedom as well Hinata. I hope your life as an Uchiha to be better than your life as a Hyuuga has been.”

She hoped that as well. After another hug, Neji remained in her room and the two of them chatted while Mina and Haruhi were doing Hinata’s hair and make-up for her date. The dress Hinata had chosen was a black beach dress with daisies and sunflowers on the skirt. The skirt was cut on one leg to her mid-thigh. The upper part was like a tank top in the front but the back was almost bare, only a few strings places in a random pattern kept the front from falling. She would pair the dress with gold wedges and a gold choker and her normal hoop earrings. Her makeup was done also in soft golds and whites. Her hair was braided in the front like a crown and she asked Haruhi to braid some small daisies in as well. The rest of her hair was free and in waves from not drying it properly before bed. Neji had left right before she changed her clothes about 10 minutes ago. Being finally done she did as promised and went downstairs to get her father’s approval, it was still only 11 so if he had any complaints she would have the time to change, or so she thought. After knocking on his office door and being granted access Hinata opened the door only to find Sasuke in the room with her father.

Hiashi looked up at her and he only nodded his approval for her attire. Sasuke had on a white button up with the last 2 buttons undone and the sleeves rolled to his elbows and a short pair of black slacks.

“Come in Hinata, Sasuke came early so we had a talk while you were still getting ready” Hinashi beckoned her to enter the room but she didn’t move to which Sasuke smirked.

“Actually, I think we will be leaving now, seeing as she is ready as well. I will see you later Hiashi-san” Sasuke greeted the older man, took Hinata’s hand and closed the door of the office. Neither of them said anything as they walked to Sasuke’s car.

Hinata was starting to get nervous, not only for the date and being alone with Sasuke, but because she hadn’t been outside without her father or at least Neji. Sasuke opened the door of her and she got inside his car. He walked around and go into the driver’s seat. Before starting the car though, he kissed the back of her hand.

“You look lovely today as well.” He turned her hand around and kissed her wrist. “You were a good girl Hinata, not listening to you father.”

Her breath hitched due to the second kiss, no man touched her wrist before, let alone kiss it. During her talk with Neji they discussed Sasuke as well. Her cousin said that he is known to be cold and quite cruel. But he had been anything but that to her. He had been gentle and affectionate, something she had never experienced. Nobody in the Hyuuga household hugged her or kissed her hands.

Sasuke looked at her and smirked at her blush, he could tell this was the real deal and not a fake like the ones from last night’s goodbye charade. He finally started the car and drove down the Hyuuga driveway till he reached the first gate, one of the security men opened the gate for them and they continued down the driveway to the second and final gate, this was opened for them as well and they were finally on the road.

“I have never left without father or Neji the premises of the house.” Hinata admitted.

Sasuke looked at her for a split second from the corner of his eye. She was looking out the door with a small smile. “Not even to a friend’s house? I noticed you talking with the Yamanaka girl a lot. Were you never allowed to visit her just with a guard or two?”

“No. Neji always had to come along” Sasuke’s reply was a small hum. He hadn’t realized that the Hyuugas were that strict.

“I will assign my best guard to you once you move in with me. When I am at work; because unlike your father I am away from the house quite a lot, you will stay with him. You are free to go as you please as long as he’s with you”

‘You are free’ was what Hinata heard. She had wanted to be free for such a long time but now that I was so close to her, she wasn’t sure what she’d do with said freedom. The rest of the drive she spent trying to come up with what she would do the first chance she got.

The restaurant was in the centre of the city, where she had never been before. The amount of people walking around was mind-blowing. There were kids laughing, people talking walks and strolling around just because they could. Her whole life the thought of public space being dangerous had been drilled in her head. Other families could be around, they could hurt her. ‘People are mean and cruel’ that was Hiashi’s go-to answer when one of them wanted to go somewhere. Despite Hinata never really believing what her dad said, his words were on repeat in her head, so without really meaning to she took a step closer to Sasuke, held onto his arm with both hands and tried to hide away. Even if one does not believe the things they are told, if they are told them often enough, they become involuntary habits; she had been taught to think she was always in danger, paranoia was not easy to let go of.

When he had said they’d go eat at a restaurant she thought he meant one owned by the Hyuuga or by the Uchiha family, a restaurant from their respective part of Konoha. She knew what part of the city belonged to the Hyuugas and looked up what parts belonged to the Uchihas and this part wasn’t owned by either.

He noticed her stiffening in the car when he parked it. He noticed her fear and the way she clung to him for dear life. “What’s the matter Hinata?”

She looked up at him with big eyes, she looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Aren’t we in danger?” Her voice was low and trembling. Sasuke stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and took both of her hands in his. Hinata took a step in front and pressed her body to his, still trying to hide.

“Why would we be in danger?” he was genuinely confused.

“People are mean and cruel. This isn’t our territory. Someone could try to shoot at us.” The reply rolled off her tongue without much thought. She had heard them so many times they felt natural.

Sasuke placed one of her hands on his chest and the other on his back above the waistband of his pants. Hinata’s eyes grew even larger when she felt both guns. “This is neutral space. We’re not on anyone’s territory.” He said softly and let go of her hands but they stood in place. “And even if someone was to try to harm you, I’d kill them all” he whispered in her ear in the gentlest way possible. The threat should have scared her, but it made her feel secure. “I will protect you with everything I have. Nobody will dare touch a single hair from your head for the fear that I’ll destroy them all” Sasuke tucked a hair strand behind her ear as he continued to spill threats to any future danger. “Do you feel better now?” he finally asked.

“Yes” Hinata answered but couldn’t look at him. She felt silly and embarrassed for being worried. They were a few steps from the restaurant and had been standing in place being an inconvenience to people passing by. “Let’s go inside” she turned around and started walking to the door and Sasuke followed. He could see her flushed cheeks but allowed her to think she had hidden her discomfort from him. There were things on his mind, her fear had been real. She had been taught that if she were to ever leave her house she would die, her father hadn’t been above lying, traumatizing and manipulating her emotions to keep her in place and in control. He had always stayed home to work so he could keep an eye on all of them. Sasuke did not agree with his methods at all.

They were finally seated at a private table on the second floor. Hinata was looking at the menu with a sparkle in her eyes. “Do you know what you want to order?” Sasuke asked her. The restaurant was fancy enough to have steak and lobster but it also had hamburgers.

“I think I’ll take a chicken cheeseburger. I tried making one in secret home and it was good enough but I’m curious to see what a real one tastes like” She said with enthusiasm. “What about you? What are you ordering?”

“I think I’ll have a burger as well, the extra spicy one” Just as the two closed the menus the waiter came to take their order. Sasuke ordered for them the burgers and a big portion of fries and onion rings with a side of all of their 4 sauces, neither of them wanted soda so they decided to order a large bottle of water.

“You’ve never eaten a burger before?” Sasuke asked trying to go back to what she had said before.

“Only the one I made. Our cook usually makes food for 2 days so he has Tuesdays and Thursdays off. In those days I like cooking something that I want to try rather than just help him with whatever dad ordered he cooks…Most what dad wants is traditionally Japanese food and I like it, but I see some foods in movies and I want to try them.”

“So, you like watching movies?” He wanted to know what her hobbies and interests were in order to provide her with them so she wouldn’t get bored alone at the house when he was away.

“I watch a movie once every 2 weeks when Ino comes to visit me.”

“She only visited you two times a month?” He had believed the Yamanaka girl to be her best friend.

“Yes, that’s how many times father allowed her to come over…” Her voice so far had been light but it had a tint of sadness when she had revealed this last part.

“What about other hobbies. What do you do usually in a day?”

“Hobbies? Oh well, umm…Usually I wake up and if it’s a day where the cook is at work, I help him make breakfast, lunch and dinner. In between I had a few classes that the elders taught me about leadership. Neji and I usually have tea in the garden when he has the time…”

He was furious. Hiashi was killing her. He didn’t allow her to leave, but she couldn’t get visitors, she wasn’t allowed to do anything but exist. He wasn’t sure if he could wait three months for her to move it. Hinata was his and she was unhappy. He could tell Hinata was feeling a bit awkward because of her answer which is why he didn’t push it. The food came and they ate in silence. Hinata had loved her burger. She tried all 4 souses and really liked the sweet chilli and the honey mustard one. After the waiter took their empty plates Sasuke ordered dessert.

“Did you enjoy the food?”

“I did. The burger was much better than the one I made home…” Her smile had returned on her face. Despite the fact that he had been against the marriage before, Sasuke was eager for it now. From the moment he had laid his eyes on Hinata this feeling overcame him, the need to protect and please her. She was his and he would keep her safe and happy no matter what. Whatever she’d ask for he’d give her, if she wanted the moon, he’d find a way.

“I’m glad you liked it. Next time tell me what other foods you want to try and I’ll think of a place to go.” Hinata agreed. They talked a little more about the food when the dessert finally came. He had ordered a lava cake with vanilla ice cream, according to many people that was the best dessert the restaurant offered.

“There’s only one. Do you want to split it?” Hinata asked but Sasuke only shook his head and pushed the plate in front of her.

“I don’t particularly like sweets so you can eat it.” He watched her enjoy the cake. She had giggled after cutting into it and seeing the molten chocolate pour out. She had never eaten a lava cake, of course. His chest felt tight, like something was squeezing his heart and wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t stop thinking about how Hiashi had sheltered her from all these small pleasures of life, he wanted to hit the older man, but at the same time, he couldn’t wait to see Hinata experience everything for the first time. It was like watching a child, she had the same big and innocent eyes.

When Hinata finished the cake, the waiter took the plate and brought the check for which Sasuke paid but they didn’t get up to leave yet. “I have a few things for you” he said. And pulled from his pocket a new phone with the charger and its pair of headphones. “I already programmed my number there and Naruto’s; he will be your bodyguard. If anything happens during these months when you are still living with Hiashi call me and if by any chance I can’t pick up call him.”

Hinata was staring at the phone like it was alien technology. “You’re giving me a phone?”

“Yes. I want to be in touch. Sadly, I can’t come and eat with you every day so on the days we can’t meet I want you to call me. I’ll call you as well when I get home if it isn’t too late and we can talk, you can tell me about your day and such” Hinata nodded and took the phone from him and stared at it for a second longer. “You can add any number you want, Neji’s, Ino’s, your sister. It will be helpful to have them for when you come and live with me and feel lonely.”

“I can add other numbers…?” Hinata was once again hit with the realization that Sasuke was offering her freedom and she didn’t know how to take it. She was overwhelmed by the fact that she had a phone, let alone that she could use it to call Ino.

“Of course. It has an unlimited number of minutes and internet too. You can watch movies if you wish. Also, if you want to buy something online use the phone, I programmed it so it would automatically take money from my account and I’ll be notified.”

Hinata was trying her best to keep tears from spilling. For some reason the fact that he allowed her the freedom of a fully functional phone felt like a huge step, he was putting his trust in her. At that moment Hinata made a promise to never betray his trust. In the few hours that Sasuke was the one in charge of her, he had been more indulging and kinder than her father had been during 22 years.

“And the last thing” Sasuke said as he took a red velvet box out from his other pocket. He opened it and inside was the most beautiful ring she had ever seen. The band was made of white gold and it had a big red ruby in the middle and on each side three smaller diamonds. The ring wasn’t overly huge, but it was beautiful. “I didn’t have the time to give this to you yesterday, I’m sorry” Hinata shook her head, there was nothing he should apologize for.

Sasuke held out his hand for her to place hers in so he could slip the ring onto her finger. It fitted perfectly and looked gorgeous on her finger. It felt a little strange, she had never put on rings on her left hand because it was considered bad-luck, so the feeling was foreign but she knew it would go away soon enough and the ring would turn into something that brought her peace at all times just from looking at it.

“I love it thank you” The squeezing was back and more powerful this time. She was wearing his ring. He had proof to show to the world that she was his. Sasuke was the one to get up first and Hinata followed. They walked out of the restaurant and back to the car hand in hand.

It was barely 2 in the afternoon. “I’m sorry I can’t spend more time with you today.”

“It’s ok. It was more than enough. I had a wonderful time, thank you” Hinata was still looking at the ring with a smile on. It was weird how something that yesterday felt like the end of the world, today felt like the beginning. Her heart fluttered when Sasuke opened the box and showed her the ring and it violently beat in her chest as he was putting it on her finger. Maybe marrying her off was the best thing her father could do.

They reached the Hyuuga house faster than either of them would have liked. “I’m not coming inside this time” Sasuke said as he walked her to the door. Hinata just realized that that had been her first date. She saw similar scenarios in the movies she watched with Ino. The boy walked the girl to the door after their date and he would kiss her. Would Sasuke kiss her? Did she want him to? A part of her was scared but the other part of her was screaming ‘KISS ME’. But Sasuke didn’t kiss her, at least not on the lips. Just like last night he kissed her forehead and left saying goodbye.

Hinata walked inside the house and it felt even colder and duller than normally. She wasn’t sure she could survive another three months there, not when freedom with Sasuke was that close. Hinata didn’t go to tell her father she was home, instead, she ran up the stairs to her room where Mina and Harushi were waiting for her. Her servants were a few years older than her, yet Hinata had never considered them friends because Hiashi drilled the belief that servants were to be servants since she was small, but her dad had been wrong before, so maybe he was wrong on this occasion as well.

The two girls bowed to her and Hinata stopped. She wasn’t sure how to act, a sudden image from a movie popped into her mind. When one of the girls would tell the others about her crush and they’d all jump up and down and screech. So, she took in a deep breath.

“You can raise your head” she said in her normal tone. The girls did as she asked. Taking in another breath she extended her left hand for them to see the ring. “Isn’t it beautiful?” Her energy was overflowing and she couldn’t contain it anymore. She started jumping up and down and laughing.

“Today was the best day ever. He was so lovely and just everything was amazing.” Hinata took one of Mina’s hands and one of Haruhi’s and started jumping up and down. The servants looked at one another before starting to laugh too and jumping with her.

“The ring is lovely” “And he’s so handsome” “I’m glad you had a lovely date Hinata-hime” “Did he tell you when the next one will be?” The two were talking alternatively.

“He didn’t but he gave me a phone and said he’ll call everyday he can’t see me” She showed them the phone as well. Hinata wanted to call Ino as soon as possible but she didn’t know her friend’s number. Whenever she wanted to talk to Ino she’d use Neji’s phone. Hinata started walking towards the door to the hallway, she wanted to look for Neji to get him to put his number and Ino’s in her phone.

The rest of the day went by faster than most of her days do. She talked to Ino on the phone for hours then took a bath and as she was changing in her night attire her phone rang. Sasuke had kept his promise to call her when he got home. She told him about talking to Ino and asked about his own day. Their conversation wasn’t very long but it still made Hinata smile. She fell asleep with a smile on her face and thoughts of Sasuke in her mind.

________________________

The following morning the first thing she did upon waking up was to check her left hand to make sure the ring was there and that it wasn’t all just a dream. She couldn’t help but smile upon seeing the piece of jewellery.

Sasuke’s question about hobbies bothered her a little, she had never really had the means of finding a hobby, she either didn’t have the time or didn’t know what to try besides cooking recipes she made up. But now she no longer needed to attend the leadership classes, her father informed her of that at breakfast, and she now had access to the internet, she could try learning a new skill, discover what she liked to watch or read, find out something she enjoyed doing. That was on her to-do list until she met with Sasuke the next time, get a hobby.

Ino liked gardening and making flower arrangements, Hinata liked helping her around the garden as well but doing the arrangements themselves was always difficult and not particularly enjoyable. The one thing she knew she’d like was drawing but was a bit scared. She had always doodled on her notes but had never tried to do an artwork. So that was the first thing she looked up on youtube, drawing videos. She found many and every single one was more amazing than the one before.

Hinata immersed herself in the videos and all the different ways in which one could create art.

________

Despite being in the middle of work Sasuke couldn’t help but think about Hinata and the things she said during their date a few days ago. She was basically a teenager getting her first phone. Sure, she knew a shit ton about leadership, her family and their world but she knew nothing about the outside world, technology and real human relationships. She didn’t know herself either, that part, seeing her figure out who she was as a person, what she enjoyed and what she didn’t, would be lovely to watch. But Sasuke was still confused about how Hiashi thought he could shelter his heir from everything, had Hinata been the leader she would have been lost, not because she wasn’t fit for it but because she didn’t know how to navigate her way through the outside world, she didn’t know what to do when someone wasn’t giving her orders. Her father had succeeded in turning her into someone submissive not because she was weak but because she had never been given the opportunity to be independent. Hinata had amazing skills, she knew over 5 languages and was taught how to fight, but she didn’t know many basic things.

Sasuke kept thinking of the best ways to slowly expose Hinata to more of the outside world and its customs, the Yamanaka girl wasn’t as sheltered but she wasn’t exactly well versed in ‘normality’ either. Naruto would spend a lot of time with her too but he couldn’t entrust the blond to teach her things, who knows what dumb stuff he would fill her head with. Of course, the obvious solution would be his mother, she was the sanest out of everyone he knew and she could help her prepare for the life of ‘the wife of the Uchiha leader’, but he would like to assign someone that’s around their age as well, someone Hinata could consider a friend and not feel overly anxious around.

Before he could find the perfect candidate, his cousin Shisui came to inform him his father wanted to talk to him. He forced himself to focus on work, but lingering thoughts of Hinata distracted him every now and again. He was still worried about her being in the Hyuuga household still, time seemed to be moving in slow-motion, the beginning of September appeared to be years away.

________

Her eyes were sparkling as she was telling him all about the painting tutorials she watched the past three weeks, she apologized for wasting so much money on ordering acrylic paints and brushes. When Hinata mentioned the money issue his temper almost got the best of him, Hiashi had so much money, enough to have a Rolex to ear for every day of the year, yet he couldn’t allow his daughter under 100 dollars to buy paints? Not to mention, but Hinata’s perception of money was off, she apologized for spending 12 dollars on a tube of paint without knowing that the phone she ordered it with was almost a thousand times more expensive. Hiashi only ever spent money on his daughters if it fit his needs, he dressed them well so people could see their wealth, Hinata had been nothing but a trophy.

“I’m sorry I asked for your address, but I just don’t want the order to come to the Hyuuga estate, I’m sure father would destroy everything I bought…” Hinata said, the tips of her ears red, as if she was embarrassed for having him as a father. It wasn’t her that should have been embarrassed but Hiashi.

“It was a nice surprise, seeing you order and send things over to my place already made it even more obvious to me that the wedding is going to happen soon” That wasn’t a lie. When her first order of brushes and canvases arrived Sasuke asked the servants to clear a whole room downstairs, one that had a glass wall towards their garden and turn it into a painting studio. Besides what she ordered he got more, he bought every type of paint there was, acrylic, water, oil and many others. He even talked to Sai, one of his workers that is a famous painter and asked if he would be open to giving Hinata a few hours, of course, provided she was fine with the idea as well.

“H-how do you feel about the marriage…? I can’t imagine you were pleased with it…” her face was lowered, her eyes watching as she was playing with her hands in order to distract herself from the question. She was scared he’d say he hated the idea, especially since over the past month since the announcement, her feelings slowly turned to happiness and excitement.

“I was slightly annoyed when dad first told me. But I’ve changed my mind and I cannot wait” Sasuke answered and placed one of his hands on top of hers to calm her down. “It drives me mad knowing you’re stuck in that house for another 2 months. I have to constantly fight the urge to just sneak in and kidnap you” His tone was light thus turning his words into a joke, Hinata giggled at it, but Sasuke was dead serious.

“I’m glad” Hinata admitted and grabbed his hand with both of hers and brought it to her lips and kissed his knuckles. Her feelings for Sasuke were complex, they started out as indifference when they were simply just individuals belonging to the same world, then they turned to fear and maybe a light form of hate the moment Hiashi announced she had been sold off, but after spending the slightest time with him, she felt relief, admiration and gratitude towards him. He represented a better future, one with freedom and happiness, a future away from her father. Sasuke was her saviour, but even those feelings started to change, her heart would flutter whenever his voice echoed from her phone, she’d constantly check for new texts from him, the days in between their meetings were the longest, while the time spent with him seemed to be so short. Every time he kissed her hand or her forehead she wanted to grab onto his face and bring it down to her face, she wanted to hold his hand, to hug him, but the urge she had most often and the one hardest to fight was to ask for the wedding to be held earlier. Whenever Sasuke drops her off at the Hyuuga estate she wants to ask him to marry her right that moment so she could go home with him.

She spoke to Ino about her feelings and about Sasuke, Ino told her that she was so glad the Uchiha was so nice to her, but that she should be careful, her feelings appeared out of nowhere and they developed so fast, she shouldn’t get too attached to him, shouldn’t become totally dependable of him because in their world ‘love’ was never one to last. Ino’s view on love was jaded after her parents’ divorce, Ino’s father was devastated when his wife left him and his daughter was there to pick up the pieces. Hinata was aware her friend was trying to warn her and shelter her from future heart break, but the thought of Sasuke hurting her seemed outlandish.

They ate pasta this time around, and with every bite, her eyes got bigger and bigger. “This is the best thing I have ever eaten. How can something be this delicious?” She kept praising the food throughout, whenever the waiter came to ask if they needed anything else Hinata would ask him to tell the chef that he is a genius, that his food is the most amazing thing ever. Sasuke smirked and shook his head every time.

“I can stay for longer today, is there anything else you’d like to try?” He asked her as they were walking around the pedestrian central part of Konoha. Hinata had been utterly confused with the concept of a part of the city denying car access, whenever they crossed a street, she’d still check for cars despite Sasuke assuring her that there was no way for one to get there. The central part was crowded and busy with people, Hinata stood a step behind Sasuke trying not to bump into anyone, looking over his shoulder at her to see if she heard his question Sasuke realized she had not, she was far too focused on not hitting anyone to concentrate on anything else. Reaching for her with his hand, he placed his arm around her waist and drew her close to his body. Her face instantly turned beet red and she looked up at him. He lowered his face towards her and Hinata’s brain picked up speed, he would surely kiss her, but there? In front of all those people? Wasn’t a public kiss a bit too much? However, his face passed by hers and only stopped when his lips were next to her ear “I asked if there is anywhere else you want to go. It’s too loud and you couldn’t hear me”

Due to her embarrassment and agitation, she simply pointed at a random building, which turned out to be a Starbucks. The two of them walked together, Sasuke still holding her by the waist, but upon walking into the café he let go, she was disappointed, but only for a moment, for he was simply letting go in order to hold her hand. Their fingers intertwined and the world fell into place, the smell of coffee wasn’t overpowering, actually, the café smelled more of chocolate. Sasuke stopped before reaching the end of the line.

“Take a look at the menu, being here for the first time can be overwhelming with all the options. If you want, we can buy so pastries as well” He already knew well that she enjoyed sweets very much. “What do you usually get?” Her eyes were glued to the menu reading all the ingredients for each beverage.

“I don’t think you’d like what I get. I get a large Americano with 3 espresso shots and no sugar.” Upon hearing his order Hinata scrunched her nose in a disgusted expression, she looked up at him. “So you drink just…black coffee, willingly?” he couldn’t help but laugh at her disbelieve “My dad drinks it that way too, says that putting anything else in coffee is blasphemy. I once asked for sugar and he got so mad… I hadn’t had coffee since then” Her story left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Maybe I’ll get a large Latte with 3 shots of espresso and one cube of sugar after all…” That conversation made him realize that there was nothing he’d hate more than her believing him and Hiashi had anything in common, he’d drink sweet coffee with milk from now until forever if it meant distancing himself from her father’s image. The change in his order made Hinata smile. “I decided as well, I want a vanilla and cinnamon Frappuccino with almond milk” Sasuke placed their orders and out a few fruit tarts as well. Their lunch date turned to a dinner date as well, which had been the longest period they had spent together in one day, thus making it especially hard when it was time for Sasuke to drop her off. Hinata watched from the hallways window as his car slowly disappeared behind the huge gates of their estate, watching him leave made her heart hurt. She knew Sasuke hated leaving her as well, still, she couldn’t help but feel abandoned.

“Are you back?” Hanabi asked as she exited the library, she probably had just finished one of her classes. All of Hinata’s bitterness towards her sister disappeared, now she only felt pity. Hanabi would be stuck in the house forever and she would be free, it was scary how one’s view on certain events could change so fast. Barely a few days ago Hinata thought she was the one being punished, but now realized it was her sister.

“Yes I’m back” Despite her pitying Hanabi, the two weren’t close enough to offer kind words of encouragement and support. “But I’m a bit tired so I’ll go to sleep”

“He didn’t hit you, did he?” it was barely a whisper, but it made Hinata’s blood boil. Her alliances changed the moment Sasuke treated her nicely, hearing Hanabi badmouth him made her want to scream at her sister, but she didn’t. She turned around slowly and smiled. “He didn’t. He would never. He won’t. he isn’t father, there is nothing about him similar to father” Hinata didn’t stay behind to hear Hanabi’s reply. She ran up the stairs and the moment her bedroom door was closed she called Sasuke, he picked up on the second ring.

“I miss you” The words were out of her mouth before she even realized, but she didn’t regret them. “I miss you” she repeated, to show to Sasuke, to herself that she meant them.

“I miss you too” his voice was softer than she had ever heard it, it was a shame she couldn’t see his expression. She closed her eyes and wished for the weeks to fly by.

________

Despite her newfound freedom in the form of a phone with full access to the internet, Hinata’s days seemed to move slower than ever. The time in-between her ‘dates’ with Sasuke were dragging on forever. She’d talk to Ino on the phone, watch videos, read from an ebook, listen to music, cook and barely 2 or 3 hours of the day would have passed. The highlight of her day was always her chat with Sasuke. Apart from their night calls, they kept texting throughout the day as well, but he was busy with work so his replies were few and far in between. Wasting time and dreaming of her future became her routine, each day seemed to be a carbon copy of the previous one. Not today, however, today was a special day, today she, Mikoto and Ino were going to choose her wedding dress. Hinata was practically bouncing, eager to leave the house, eager to try the dresses on, eager to see herself in white, the dress would be proof not only that the wedding was getting nearer, but also that it was indeed reality and not one of her daydreams.

She had been worried her father wouldn’t have allowed for it, but both Fugaku and Sasuke assure him that Naruto, her future bodyguard, was the best and he would be able to protect the three women for the day. Thankfully her father was just as excited about the wedding and would not go and do anything to potentially ruin his newfound friendship with the Uchiha head.

The plan was for Naruto and Mikoto to get to her house around noon, then they would drive to Ino’s and to the dress shop. After picking up the dress they’d go to eat and see the wedding venue and all the plans Mikoto arranged, to make sure Hinata liked everything and if she didn’t so they could change everything by the wedding which was 3 weeks away. Hinata woke up at 7, unable to contain her longing to be outside, she got dressed up, ate and has spent the last 4 hours pacing around the entrance hall.

When her father passed by her early in the morning he lectured her, telling her how she should behave, be respectful, yet vigilant because ‘people are mean and cruel’ because ‘the shop isn’t on out territory’, because ‘you are always in danger.

Neji also spent about half an hour with her talking about her feelings about the wedding, her impression of Sasuke. Her stories and happiness eased his mind and guilt, for he had not been able to stop the arranged marriage. He truthfully wished for her excitement to never die; he hoped the Uchiha household would be a proper environment for her growth.

The only one in the Hyuuga household that was not on board with the marriage was Hanabi. She continued making remarks about Sasuke’s renowned cruelness, hinting that Hinata would not know happiness in her marriage with him. She constantly asked whether he had any violent tendencies towards her, whether he ignored her, whether he cheated on her. Hinata always tried to not let her words get to her, Sasuke was wonderful and more than she had ever hope for, she had no reason to doubt him, so all of Hanabi’s words never had any impact but annoy her. Hinata always defended Sasuke and Hanabi would answer ‘my foolish sister’, patronizing her, making it seem as if she knew more than Hinata herself. Hinata tried to understand where Hanabi was coming from…all of her life she had hoped to be the heir and now she was. But Hinata’s happiness was yet another source of jealousy for Hanabi, she was slowly realizing that once again, she was the one who had the short end of the stick, thus all of her remarks weren’t for Hinata to believe, but for herself. She tried so hard to convince herself Hinata’s future was bleak and Hanabi had to pity her, not the other way around.

Once again, right before Mikoto and Naruto arrived Hanabi made a remark that hurt Hinata’s feelings, a remark which Hanabi too regretted instantly, her remorse could be read on her face, but her ego stopped her from apologizing. “Make sure you pick a pretty dress Hinata, that’s what you’ll be buried in when he kills you on the wedding night” she said loud and clear, for the servants around to hear, had Hiashi been there he would have punished Hanabi for trying to destroy the Hyuuga-Uchiha Union, but all Hinata did was give her a sad smile and answer with “Good luck to you too little sister” Their relationship could never be fixed, not when jealousy was the primal feeling Hanabi held for her, not when her ego stood in the way of a sincere apology, not when Hinata was resigned and no longer wished to try.

Mikoto came like a hurricane, she entered the house without knocking, she hugged Hinata and kissed both of her cheeks, she complimented her on her dress and make-up. Behind her was a blond young man that gave her a warm smile. “This is Naruto, he will be your bodyguard when you enter the family”

Naruto took a step closer but made no attempt to touch her, he simply smiled wider and bowed his head slightly. “It’s a pleasure to meet and protect you Miss Hinata” Naruto’s use of her name and not of Hyuuga felt odd, but freeing; she wanted to move past this family. She would not forget them, for they were part of her, they made her who she was at that moment, but she wanted to leave them and this variation of herself behind, she wanted to become independent and someone she chose to become.

After picking Ino up the group was ready to go to the dress shop, Mikoto had asked Ino to sit in the front seat for she wanted to talk to Hinata in the back. Hinata couldn’t help but notice her friend’s red cheeks whenever she looked Naruto’s way. Hinata couldn’t tell if the flushness was due to the fact that Naruto was a man Ino had never had contact with when she was young, thus she wasn’t used to his company, or whether her blush had a deeper meaning. In the backseat, Mikoto explained certain details about the wedding preparations, her tone was light and she talked without any formalities. Whenever Hinata answered it was an awkward mix of formal and informal language and she refrained from addressing Mikoto directly, for she didn’t know what to call her, Mrs Uchiha, or was that too formal for someone to be her mother-in-law in 3 weeks? Mikoto, but wasn’t that rude to address in such a manner to an older relative?

Upon reaching the dress shop, the designer working there assured the women that she had reserved the whole shop just for them. She was eager to help and to please any and all of Hinata’s requests. “Call me Sakura!” she said as they met “no need for formalities, after all I am here to help you find what you will be wearing on the most important day of your life”

Hinata tried on 5 dresses before finding ‘the one’. It was perfect in every way possible. The bodice was made entirely of lace that was a bit see-through, thus had white material around the chest area in a heart shape. The skirt was long and flowy but not overly heavy, it had beautiful lace details on the bottom of the skirt and a split on the left leg until above the knee. It was a stunning dress, but so were all the ones before, however, the moment Hinata tried it on, it felt different, it felt right. Seeing herself in the mirror her eyes got a bit misty and in her overflow of emotion turned around to hug Sakura who just finished buttoning the last button at her back. She told her how she felt the dress was the one and Sakura’s eyes got a bit misty too. This is what she did that job for, these moments in which a young woman found her perfect one and only dress to wear on her wedding day, she lived to see the happy tears and all the smiles.

“Stay here for a second, I’ll announce that this is it, this is the dress” She learned in the years of doing this job that whenever an instant click between woman-dress happened it should always be said to the party that came to help pick the dress as well so they would not criticize anything and break the magic spell of the moment. “Hinata found it, her perfect dress” Sakura said just moments before Hinata walked in wearing the most radiant smile ever, Ino screamed and ran to hug her and shower her in compliments, Mikoto watched from the side-line as the three young women discussed how perfect the dress was. After a short while, Hinata turned to Mikoto with bashful red cheeks “What do you think Mrs. Uchiha?”

Mikoto went to her and hugged her close as well. “The dress is perfect, it’s everything I hoped you’d find and more” she made a short pause for she felt this pressure in the back of her throat as id she too was about to cry. “and please, call me mother, I know that the wedding will only be in 3 weeks, but you already are my child Hinata dear” Mikoto’s kindness and warmth only made Hinata cry more. Naruto watched with a smile the whole event, he too liked Hinata from what he had seen of her, he was glad his friend was lucky enough for the arranged marriage to lead him to her. Even before he met Hinata he saw Sasuke’s expression when talking about her, he heard the soft tone in which he spoke about her and could tell that his friend held a deep affection for his fiancé.

After the dress picking event, Hinata asked for Sakura’s number to call her in the instance of the dress needing anything done day-of the wedding, that was the excuse anyway, in reality, she simply felt as if the moment they shared in the dressing room was special and wanted to try and keep in contact with her. Their next destination was the wedding hall, followed by other shops to get the wedding shoes, jewellery and her second wedding outfit in which she would change after their first dance. Just like the days in which she had dates with Sasuke, the time flew by and soon enough it was dark outside and time for them to return. After dropping Ino off, instead of driving back to the Hyuuga estate, Naruto took a sudden left turn which led to Hinata’s confusion, doubt and for the smallest second fear. Mikoto placed her hand on her knee and smiled at her, letting her know there was nothing to be afraid of. Despite being quite late, it wasn’t dark out yet, the summer sun refused to set.

The car stopped in front of a restaurant Hinata knew. “Are we getting dinner as well?” She was wondering why did they drop Ino off, maybe Mikot had something to discuss with her in private? Before she could come up with any other speculations, her car door opened and a familiar face greeted her with a smirk on. Her heart started beating faster the moment her eyes met Sasuke’s. She placed her hand in his and was smoothly pulled out of the car and into his arms. “Thank you, mother for dropping her off.” He said and then nodded towards Naruto expressing his thanks to him silently. Hinata was still in a daze and looking up at him as if he was a mere hallucination.

“I finished work earlier and Naruto told me you guys were still out so I asked him to bring you to me” He explained the situation to her and ushered her towards the entrance of the restaurant. It was the same restaurant in which they ate that pasta, out of all the things they tried together those were her favourite. Looking up at Sasuke Hinata kept wondering how Ino could expect her not to fall for him when he treated her this way, he had brought her more joy than she had experienced in her whole life, the memories she had of him were her favourite. He was slowly and steadily becoming the centre of her universe.

Since the moment they got seated and he reached out to hold her hand and slowly brush her wrist with his thumb, Hinata had been fighting the urge to simply utter ‘I love you’. Was it too fast? They met about 2 months ago, they went on dates about twice a week maybe three times if Sasuke’s work allowed for that, however they talked daily, her thoughts were filled with him. She wasn’t confused, these feelings might have started as gratitude for being saved, but they were romantic, she was in love with him, that much she knew. Sasuke noticed how distracted she was during their meal, she barely complimented the chef, but he decided not to pry yet, however, her silence during their walk after dinner bothered him more than he cared to admit. He loved how her eyes sparkled when she spoke about things she loved. She stopped walking and turned to face her, cupping her face in his hands, her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. She looked so lovely, and so utterly small and fragile, he would protect her with everything he had, he would help her build her strength enough to be able to protect herself, but even then, when she was capable, he’d do everything in his power to destroy anything that posed as a threat to her, whether physical, emotional or mental.

“What’s the matter Hinata? You’ve been in deep thought all night” he had been excited to hear all about her day, Naruto kept him updated every hour, but hearing the events from her would have been much more entertaining. Hinata looked into his eyes longingly, he wasn’t sure what she wanted but whatever it was he would give it to her. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath in.

“I have been...thinking whether I should tell you something the whole night and I cannot seem to find the right answer, what do you think I should do?” her eyes were still closed, too scared to see his reaction. Sasuke was the one confused now, why would she be struggling in such a manner? She should always tell him everything, anything no matter how trivia, he wanted to know every single thought that went on in her mind.

Sasuke took a step closer to her, their bodies were almost touching and he was still affectionately holding her face. “I think you should tell me; I think you should always tell me everything” Hinata’s heart was beating out of her chest, she was scared to look into his eyes as she said it, but she wanted to see him as she said it too. Choosing to be brave today, choosing to believe that Sasuke would catch her when she fell, Hinata opened her eyes, placed both of her hands over his on her face and smiled.

“Ok, I will tell you” Her mind was made, but she still needed a second to compose herself. “I love you”

The feeling Hinata had when putting the dress on was similar to what Sasuke experienced upon hearing those words, however, the magnitude of his feeling was much stronger, it felt as if the planets aligned, as if all the events ever in the world and its history happened as they did in order to lead to this very moment. A star exploded that lead to the creation of a galaxy, to the creation of a planet, to the creation of humanity, all for this one single moment.

He had not thought in depth about his feelings for Hinata, not because he didn’t want to admit them, but rather because it was unknown territory, but the moment she uttered the words he knew them to be true on his side as well. “I’m glad” he answered, his voice cracked so he cleared his throat. “I’m glad you decided to tell me” Hinata’s smile was stunning, she had told him and he was happy, he was moved, she could see a myriad of emotions in his eyes, all slowly falling into place. Sasuke wanted to say the words back but felt oddly fearful and uncertain, he had never experienced that level of awkwardness. “I do too” he muttered feeling defeated, he had chickened out and took a shortcut, but he will try to work harder, he will be able to express his feelings.

Hinata wasn’t mad or sad or disappointed by his answer, she could tell he was trying his best and if she were honest, it was lovely seeing him be the flustered one for a change. They were still in the same position, their faces close to each other, so Hinata once again took the initiative and raised on her tip-toes and kissed him, it was merely a peck. She knew the Uchiha traditions now and wished to follow them thus not being able to fully kiss him, however, the moment felt monumental enough for a small peck to be excused, plus nobody would ever know.

Sasuke stared at her for a moment longer, she was such a complex antithesis, she was weak yet strong, afraid yet brave, clueless yet intelligent, and everything about her made him glad for all the decisions he ever took that led him to her. He was thankful to his father which without even realizing he showed, since his and Hinata’s engagement was announced he and Fugaku have been getting along much better, everything at work went smoother and he often worked harder and faster in order to get a day off to spend with her. Hinata too helped him, their relationship was equally beneficial to both, they both took and both gave.

________

All of the final preparations for the wedding were coming along beautifully, the big event was the next day, but for Hinata even that was too long, the past three months had felt longer than her whole life before her engagement. Everything was better in the Hyuuga household, Neji and her were closer than ever, for he was finally able to be fully honest with her and she too was much happier and open. Her father mostly left her alone, apart from a small incident in which he admitted that he had spoken to her doctors to have her fertility tested almost half a year ago when he and Fugaku were first talking about the union, the test came back positive, but Hinata still felt like that was a huge invasion of her privacy and complained to Sasuke, who in turn argued with both of the older men, but the deed was long done and there wasn’t much he could do but think even lower of Hiashi and treat his father coldly for a while, until Hinata assure him that she had moved past that issue. Even Hanabi stopped her remarks after the incident on the wedding-dress day. After choosing the dress she and Mikoto went out to spend time together a few more times, she even met up separately with Ino and Sakura twice. When Hinata talked about her new friendship with Sasuke he was, in her words ‘delighted’; Sasuke had hoped for the wedding dress girl to become Hinata’s friend after she first told him about her. He had wanted her to have a friend that was well-versed into normality in order to help Hinata at times navigate society, however, he wished for that friendship to bloom naturally, sure he could have done as others would, namely bribe someone into being her friend, but that would only cause issues later, plus being close to Hinata is payment enough.

The weekend before the wedding Hinata was invited to have dinner at the Uchiha estate, she and Mikoto were already very close, however, Fugaku still scared her a little while Itachi seemed nice, but maybe a bit cold and detached, unwilling to fully interact with this world. He reminded her a little of herself when she still lived at the Hyuuga household. Being able to form that connection, after dinner she sought him out and talked to him alone, trying to relate his feelings with her own. Itachi wanted to be freed from his family much like she did, however, the ties keeping him there were much stronger, he loved all of his family but could not fully function and integrate into their world of organized crime.

After her talk to Itachi ended, Fugaku apologized for breaching her privacy and welcomed her to the family. She knew how much that meant, her father had never apologized for anything, so she could only imagine how hard it must have been for Fugaku to step over his pride and ego, she appreciated it more than she let on.

The night before the wedding Hinata had a dream, in that dream, she and Sasuke were laying together on a bed just looking at each other while holding themselves close, she felt at peace with her surroundings and Sasuke’s eyes on her made her feel seen and loved. The whole dream was peaceful, they sit in silence, then talk a little followed by kisses and laughs, which would quiet down to silence and the circle would start anew.

When her servants woke her up at 5 am, she wasn’t annoyed as she normally would have been before any other event, she had taken with her the peacefulness of her dream, she had waited so long for this day it almost felt like this was just another dream too, but the scrubbing her servants did during her bath stung, letting her know that this was reality, the happiness she felt was going to be a constant, for Sasuke will make sure to keep her smiling throughout their whole lives.

Unlike the preparations for other events in which Hinata didn’t particularly care about her looks, she was very specific this time around, she and Mikoto picked together her hairstyle too, her makeup colours and every little detail. Time seemed to dilate at times and a minute felt like an eternity, while other times it felt as if it were on fast-forward, she’d close her eyes for a second and a full hour would have passed.

By 9 am she was completely done, looking at herself in the mirror she remembered the day the engagement was announced, how picturing herself next to Sasuke felt strange, but now, picturing herself without him felt unnatural, her brain and heart finally agreed and they both knew Sasuke was her everything, he would be the one and only to ever stand by her side. While she was admiring herself in the mirror Neji walked in, telling her it was time to go to the church, the wedding was about to begin.

Nothing could ruin her perfect day, not even Hiashi holding her hand proudly as he walked her down the aisle, not even Hanabi refusing to make eye contact with her, all she could see and all that mattered was Sasuke at the end of the red rug, standing tall and handsome. Everything that had happened before in her life almost didn’t matter, this was the moment her life began. She barely heard anything the priest said, her answers were mostly done on auto-pilot, only when it was the moment for the rings to be exchanged did her eyes water, hearing Sasuke say ‘I do’ was a memory she’ll treasure forever. Their first official kiss was short, much shorter than she had hoped it would be, but even that didn’t ruin her mood, for she had walked inside a Hyuuga and left an Uchiha.

It was during their first dance that Sasuke whispered “I love you” he softly into her ear, only for her alone to hear, it had taken him a bit longer than her but he got to the point in which he could express his feeling in words too, for he had told her he loved her countless times with his actions alone. “I love you too” she replied and pulled his face to her for a kiss, not caring remotely that people were watching her. She would not be punished for causing a scene, Hiashi had no more power over her and Sasuke would never cage her or treat her like an inferior. She had the freedom to do whatever she wanted, and her first choice was to kiss her husband in front of all of those people on her wedding night.

@sasuhinamonth

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day Two Hundred Ninety-Four: Fork in the Road ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Mikoto, Uchiha Fugaku ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

Okay, Sasuke...this is it. Just strike this guy out, and it’s over. You’ll be going to state. From there it doesn’t even matter how far you get. You just need to get there...you can do this. Staring intensely at the latest batter up from the opposing team, Sasuke watches Naruto’s hand, signaling which pitch to throw. Without reacting, he winds back and throws.

It whiffs right over the guy’s bat. A strike. Okay, just two more. That’s all he needs, and they win. Shaking out his throwing hand, he considers the batter and throws his second pitch.

The sound of a cracking bat makes his heart leap, but a look at the trajectory shows that it’s a foul ball. Now his chest is fluttering. He did not want this guy to get a hit off, foul or not! They’ve got two runners on third and second. If he hits well enough, they might get both in and flip their one point lead.

He can’t let that happen…! Not after so many years of practice, of games, and watching his elder brother take their soccer team to state more than once. He has to get there, just one time...just so he can say they did…

Breath rushing, he winds up, time seeming to slow as he lobs the ball. Staring so intensely it might just catch fire, Sasuke sees the bat swing...and go right under the ball, which lands solidly in Naruto’s mitt.

A few seconds pass in shocked silence...and then the home crowd roars as the last out is called, and the game is over. They won, four to three. They’re going to state. For the first time in all four years of high school baseball...Sasuke’s going to state.

Standing almost numbly on the pitching mound, he jostles as the team rushes him, knocking his hat off and ruffling his hair. Budding tears along the lids of his eyes soon fall as he smiles, overcome with pride and relief. Laughter bubbles up his throat as he finally reacts, reaching out and putting arms around as many of his teammates as he can reach.

A lot quieter, the losing team starts shuffling together, waiting to shake hands with their opponents.

“YOU DID IT!” Naruto crows, leaping and punching a fist into the air. “YOU DID IT YOU ASSHOLE!”

Chuckling at the blond’s ever-present name calling, Sasuke doesn’t even care to rebuke it. Instead, he leads the team through their appreciation of their opposing team, still feeling like he’s floating as they quit the field.

First to find him is his mother, who leaps and latches onto him around the neck. Praise rattles off her tongue in droves as his father walks up, arms folded and a rugged grin on his face. Fugaku nods, and Sasuke nods back over Mikoto’s shoulder.

Bringing up the rear, looking shy to interrupt, is Hinata.

Flinching with a smile as Mikoto smooches his cheek and goes to find Kushina, Sasuke watches Hinata approach. “...hey.”

“Hey.” Smiling, she tucks some hair behind her ear. “I...think I’ll leave the tackling to your mom, okay?”

He laughs. “Yeah, that’s fine. But I can get a hug instead, right?”

“Of course.” Looping arms around his neck, Hinata nuzzles her brow against his shoulder. “...I’m so proud of you…”

“Thanks...so, still gonna skip school to watch the games?”

“I think I have the guts to,” she replies, backing up to look at him. “Hopefully my dad will understand once I explain everything.”

“Have you told him about, uh...us?”

“I did. He actually just sort of...w-waved it off? I was surprised, I thought he��d flip!”

“Huh...guess he doesn’t assume I’m a jerk, then.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Doesn’t every dad think that of their daughter’s boyfriend?”

Though she giggles, Hinata also goes a bit pink. ‘Boyfriend’ is still a concept she’s familiarizing herself with. “Maybe...but I guess you can meet him when you come over this weekend…?”

“Yeah, sure. I think I can handle that.” As he agrees, however, Sasuke recalls his conversation with Naruto the previous day: his worries about what will happen when their senior year ends in only a few weeks. “...so, uh...hey. Can I...ask you something?”

“Of course!”

“I know we haven’t, like...gone out or anything yet. But I was just wondering, if...if things go okay this weekend, do you...I mean, will things...keep going this Summer?”

Hinata blinks, looking taken aback. “...you mean...am I going to break up with you when school ends?”

“I mean, I dunno what your plans are, if...if I might be in the way, or -”

Gently, Hinata holds up a hand, asking for silence. “...Sasuke, I’m not going to just...t-tease you for a few weeks. I mean, I g-guess we can’t really know what’s going to happen: if...something might go awry. But...I don’t have any plans for this ending just because we g-graduate.”

Before he can stop it, Sasuke visibly wilts in relief. “...oh…”

“Did...did I give an impression that -?”

“No! No, I...I was just kinda...worried. Over-thinking.” He itches the rear of his neck. “I’ve never...done this before.”

“...I know. Me neither.”

“Well, I mean...before you, uh...caught my eye, I really didn’t...I never...had that feeling before. I’m...totally new to this. I dunno what’s too little, or too much. All I know is that I...I really like you, Hinata. And I know there might be a fork in the road at the end of the Summer. We might end up going in different directions. But…” It’s his turn to go a little pink, glancing aside. “...I just...want you to know that I don’t...I’m not planning on giving up that easily.”

Eyes widening, Hinata’s cheeks are their own rosy hue. “You...you really…?”

“Maybe that’s too forward of me, all things considered. But...well, I’ve always thought you were really nice, and cute, and…” Oh jeez, he’s rambling… “...I-I just mean that...I’m already pretty sure that...that I like you. So...I just wanted to see if...if I was out of bounds with that or not.”

Thought finally processed, Hinata then softens with a smile. “...well, I guess I’m not as...f-familiar with you yet. You were seeing things about me when...I was too busy trying to look someplace else. And I d-don’t blame you for that, or...or anything. I just need a little time to...catch up! But so far, I...I really do like you, Sasuke. You’re a lot sweeter than you let on.”

“...than I let on?”

That earns a giggle. “You know, that...cool, aloof attitude you put on. But...I think I know why you do that, so...I understand.”

He blinks. “...okay.”

“Anyway, I’m...I’m really looking forward to Saturday,” she then offers, smiling shyly and blooming pink again. “Some time with just the two of us. No, uh...interruptions. Like...stray baseball bats, or flat bike tires.”

In spite of himself, Sasuke snorts. “Yeah, that’ll be nice.”

“Sasuke!”

Turning, he sees his parents standing nearby. Mikoto has her camera out. “What?”

“I want to get your picture! This is a big day!”

Wilting a bit in embarrassment, he gives Hinata a hint of a flustered smile. “...sorry, I better go.”

“That’s okay! I’ll wait.”

“You...you don’t want to go home?”

It’s her turn to look sheepish, pulling out her phone. “Well, I...m-might want a picture too, if...if that’s okay.”

Sasuke perks up a hair. “...yeah, sure! Here, I bet Mom’ll take one for you.”

“...oh!” Shyly following, Hinata reintroduces herself to Mikoto, and for the first time meets Fugaku.

“This is Sasuke’s friend, the one with the flat tire I was telling you about!” Mikoto clarifies, making Hinata go pink.

Glancing to her, Sasuke then offers, “Actually, Mom...Hinata’s my girlfriend.”

Both of his parents look to him, eyes wide. “I...wait, your...your what?”

A bit of heat shines through his cheeks. “Hinata is...is my girlfriend.”

Mikoto can’t help a small gasp, resting a hand against her husband’s chest. “...I never thought I’d see the day…!” A wide smile grows across her face. “Oh honey, that’s wonderful! She’s so sweet, what a nice surprise! Is that why she…?”

“That was, er...before, actually. This is kinda...recent.”

“Oh, I see! Well I’m so happy for you, dear! It’s about time!” she laughs. “Well then go stand with him, I’ll get a picture of you both! Oh, and with your phone too? Perfect!”

Cozying up to Sasuke’s side shyly, Hinata mumbles, “Did you really have to tell them now…?”

“Sorry...couldn’t let them think wrong,” he replies, smiling a bit for the camera. “Only fair, anyway - I gotta meet yours this weekend.”

“...that’s true.”

Once Mikoto’s done snapping and fawning, she hands Hinata her phone back. Fugaku looks to the pair thoughtfully.

“...congratulations,” is all he offers, but Sasuke knows that’s praise enough.

“...thanks, Dad.”

“Well, we’ll go ahead and make our way home - I bet you want to stay and be with your team for a while,” Mikoto then offers, waving them off. “Just be home by curfew, dear! And it was lovely seeing you again, Hinata - come by any time!”

“Thank you!” the Hyūga calls in reply, waving in return before turning to Sasuke. “...am I allowed to come with you to celebrate?”

“Hell yeah you are,” Sasuke insists, though...he doesn’t actually know that for sure. But given the wide grin he can see on Naruto’s face as he and Sakura follow the others, he’ll assume he’s bringing her along. It’s only fair. “C’mon. We were gonna head out for pizza.”

“Ooh, nice!”

Putting an arm around her shoulders, Sasuke leads her toward the parking lot, cars revving as they all head toward the parlor. Well...maybe he doesn’t know what the future holds. But for right now, he’s going to just...enjoy the present.

It’s pretty sweet right now.

.oOo.

(This is a sequel to days 149, 168, 183, 271, and 287!) More sports AU! And SASUKE MADE IT TO STATE! WOO! I mean...maybe it was obvious, but...still xD I'm proud of him, lol But more importantly, he broached that very scary topic with Hinata: the /future/. Of course, we all knew she's not the type to lead him on. And he knew that, too. He's just a worrywart, and nervous about getting his heart broken - he's new to this, he deserves a break! And at least we know his parents approve xD Hiashi SEEMS okay, but...well, we'll have to see what he says when they actually meet ;3 For now tho, I gotta head to bed, so...thanks for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #uzumaki naruto #uchiha mikoto #uchiha fugaku #best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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blue---rose · 5 years

Text

White Widow - Chapter 2

Fanfiction.net | AO3

Title: White Widow Chapter: Two Author: Blue Rose Rating: M (Hard R) Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura Summary: "Running away was easy; not knowing what to do next was the hard part." - Sakura needed to stop fantasizing about running away to some other life, and start figuring out the one she had. [Sasu/Saku, Modern AU]

Warnings: Adult Content Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I damn sure don't make a single red cent for this either. So please, don't sue the Blue

Author Notes: If you like please don't forget to review/comment/like. A very special thank you to my amazing beta: MySoberThoughts

･ﾟ* : *ﾟ･

He looked down between them and decided… it was one of the most foolish things he ever did in his entire life. The air rushed past his lips and his whole body strained for some measure of control, but watching himself as he took her was stripping any discipline he possessed. He wanted to savor this conquest, as barbaric as it sounded. It truly was the only word his muddled brain could come up with, to describe how it felt… to be able to get this close to someone like her, to have been deemed worthy enough to allow him into her bed, inside of her…

The groan he released did not cover the sound of them joining, his hips pulling away and... Gods... he could see how she covered him. The neighboring apartments and full moon cast the room in shadows, but through the dim light, he sees everything.

Her essence on his length as he began to move quicker…

The beautiful arch of her back…

The thick, wild mane that almost glowed peach against the sheets…

It became easier as they went along, moving together so fluently they could have been mistaken for long-time lovers; companions that had spent countless nights together, getting to know every dip and curve… every hidden crevice.

His patience in the beginning with her … taking his sweet time… allowing her to adjust and succumb to the pleasure that raced down to her toes, was paying off. She moaned beneath him, her body moving with a hypnotic, feline grace as she followed his lead. She yielded to him, offering herself…

…if he promised to keep taking care of her, like his sinful eyes had sworn to her that they would… she would give him anything he wanted at all… all night, for as long as he demanded it. The unspoken way his body communicated with her, all the ways he could make her feel… and all the things he could do, if only she would let him.

He was trying to fulfill that promise now. Shifting his hold, he moved at a faster pace, eager to show her all the ways he could make her sing for him. She was mistaken if she thought the little mews coming from her full lips would placate him for long.

Hands grasping, slipping across soft skin as she all but purred, green eyes finally meeting his own over her shoulder… looking at him in a way that had him aching… straining… just for her, and his lips pulled back, mouth opening to tell her just how fucking good she was being to him right now and he-

･ﾟ* : *ﾟ･

He awoke as his throat closed, cutting off the groan that was rising from his heaving chest. Sweat cooled on his forehead and pecs, the tank top sticking to his skin as he kicked the blankets off with a huff. His pulsing erection throbbed against his lower belly and he shut his eyes once more. He didn't have to check the time to know it was still very early. It was still dark out, but in a few minutes the predawn, morning sky would give way to streaks of blues and greys. His heart was still beating fast, as his mind scrambled to retain the images from the dream.

' Not just a dream though… was it? ', he thought.

Sasuke frowned, not liking the interruption from sleep the dream had caused… especially regarding that. Fuck, he was way too old for this shit… hardly an adolescent. He supposed it made sense though. It's not like these thoughts were just randomly populating. She was back, it seemed. And seeing her, standing there… no matter how fleeting, was bound to stir up memories of their last encounter together before she disappeared.

Damn, she looked good... really good. Standing there, tall boots hugging the edge of her thighs … looking so beautiful… with those legs that went on for days, and every inch of exposed skin sent heat racing through his veins. He sighed, running his hand across his face before running blunt nails across his scalp in frustration.

' Doesn't mean I have to like it. '

Accepting that he would not be going back to sleep anytime soon; he sat up, swinging his legs so his feet touched the floor… running a hand through his midnight locks again, body still humming. His only options were to either go for a run… or take a cold shower. His eyes flickered down, taking stock of his calming length, beneath his sleepwear and decided… some air would do him good.

By the time he rounded the corner at the end of his block, the playlist he selected on his phone was two songs in… and he had faith that, the repetitive pounding of his feet on the pavement would drive out any lingering thoughts of a girl that made it clear she did not want to be thought of, or chased.

At least for now…

There would be some time, coming soon he was sure… that would allow them to settle up, and actually, talk. And this time, she wouldn't go running off to some random airport gate to board a plane, before then… he'd make sure of it.

He was not someone to be ignored, as she'd soon come to know… even if she learned that lesson the hard way.

Sakura Haruno now had his full attention.

:✧･ﾟ･*･ﾟ･✧ B R✧･ﾟ･*･ﾟ･✧:

"Oh, I wish you'd visited the Manila Ocean Park while you were there. I'm telling you, it is absolutely amazing. Your father took me there a few years back." Mebuki said as all three ladies made their way outside. They had just all but gorged themselves on French Toast and mimosas, chatting half the morning away in the little café.

The older Haruno fussed over her daughter constantly, not missing a moment to inquire about her health… as well as her dating life. Only her mother could squeeze in talks about home cooked meals and husbands randomly, despite the topic of conversation. She tried to brush her off like normal, insisting that her job left little to no time for finding dates lately… or whipping together three-course meals every night.

"It's not like I'm going on a girl's trip. I don't go there to visit museums and beaches. I'm working."

"I know, I know. That doesn't mean you can't take care of yourself. Your health is important, you know that. I swear, if I didn't know for a fact you can cook more than microwavable meals, you'd put me in an early grave. I worry about you Sakura." She cupped her daughter's soft cheek, frowning in concern.

She really was proud of the work her daughter was doing with a small humanitarian group, the small organization was a branch of Doctors Without Borders. That did not take away the uneasiness she felt whenever her only child went abroad; sometimes to war-torn nations to lend aid, spreading health awareness and overall helping and doing good. Her concerns were only put to rest when, and ONLY when she heard her daughter's voice over the phone during a scheduled check-in, or… more importantly; when she was back in her home town… close enough to touch and hug and smoother with affection.

Sakura smiled, reaching up to cradle the warm hand still pressed against her face.

"Momma…" She gave her hand a squeeze before lowering both of them. "I'm fine… really. I eat, and not just junk food and grease. I promise."

"She has been eating salads and lots of lean protein since she's been home this time, Scouts Honor." Ino pipped up from behind them, slipping her sunglasses over her eyes. Sakura turned back to her mother.

"See?"

"Neither of you were girl scouts. We couldn't even get you two to join the Brownies because of the uniform color, remember? It wasn't 'in season' at the time." She deadpanned. Ino just cracked a smile at the memory.

Mebuki turned and swept Sakura up in a hug, squeezing just a bit too tight… but it warmed her heart, because it reminded her of the giant hugs her Dad still gave out, and she returned the tenderness eagerly. "I miss you so much. You really need to come home more often." She pulled back, catching her eyes before she could look away.

"And not just to your apartment, in the city… but home. You need to make more of an effort Sakura. Thanksgiving was the last time you set foot there, wasn't it? Such a long time ago. I know it's been difficult, and I completely understand-"

"Momma-"

"I mean it." There was a sharpness that entered her voice and had her back straightening. Her mother was not one to repeat herself, and when she did… you'd had better shut up and listen. That all, too familiar tone was hard wired in her brain, and even adulthood could not erase it. It was the language between a parent and child, and Sakura buttoned up immediately. "I know your father will be away for a while on business, but I'm still there. Your home, is still there, and you'd best make your way there to come see us… and sometime soon."

Green eyes were intently focused on her, and Sakura just knew; if they'd been somewhere more secluded, then standing on the sidewalk in DuPont Circle… they would indeed be having whatever discussion Mebuki felt was long overdue. Thank goodness for old school parents, who thought heavy conversations were best done privately.

Cracking a smile, and in an attempt to reset the mood; Mebuki changed the subject to Sakura's dating life.

"Hmmm, maybe you could bring that Managing Director home next time, for dinner. What was his name?" They walked her to her car, but Sakura stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, a muscle in her jaw twitched.

"…Dr. Dan? My boss?" She could not be serious.

"What a nice young man he is." Mebuki sang as she fished out her car keys.

"…He's my boss." Sakura deadpanned.

"You two could be discrete. Is such a thing, against company policy or guidelines?"

"Ew." Ino muttered, deciding to sit this one out. Sakura needed to fight her own battles.

"He's my mentor's fiancé, Momma", Sakura shook her head. Mebuki unlocked her car doors when they arrived to her parking spot, chuckling while pulling both girls close.

"It was just a thought. Anyways…I'll see you girls soon. I have a few stops to make in Georgetown before heading back. Sakura, you make sure to call me tonight, hmm? Love you girls!" One last departing kiss on the cheek and she was off, the little two-door coupe pulled away into traffic, leaving the duo standing there, a slight breeze brushing past them.

Ino turned to Sakura while pushing a few golden strains behind her ear. "Want to grab a drink?" Sakura's eyes widened, checking the time on her phone… confirming her suspicions.

"It's not even noon yet." She conveniently left out the fact that they just downed a few glasses of orange juice and champagne not too long ago.

"Ugh, whatever. Coffee then." She relinquished, leading her across the street to cut through the park, to grab a cup. She wasn't ready to part ways and wanted to spend as much time as she could with her best friend. "So… anything new? Other than 'Sexy Dan the Man', are there… any other guys I should know about?"

"You are horrible at being subtle; you do know that… right?"

"Then don't make me continue on with this charade and finally give me the 'deets I've been dying to get, for well over four months. And please, don't spare the horrid details. Because you owe me Hurano!" Did she even take a moment to breathe during all of that?

They took a seat in the outdoor patio area, enjoying the slightly warmer, spring weather the weekend ushered in. It was pretty nice out, with the sun making an appearance here and there despite the overcast. That didn't stop her expression from closing up, not quite sure how she wanted to approach the subject. It was at that moment she realized, she never really allowed herself to think about it. As crazy as it sounded, she was successful with her intentions of distraction over the last few months, and had not dwelled on the unknowns she'd left behind.

"There's not much to say. It was just a hook-up. Nothing special."

"Nothing special?" Ino echoed, after giving their coffee orders to the petite waitress.

"It was either So-God-Awful that you needed to run away, almost halfway across the world to escape the disappointment, OR-"

Her eyes lit up, gleaming with realization.

"It was good. Really good. And maybe… that scared you? I know you… and I have a funny feeling this was something loooooooong in the making you sneaky, sneaky girl. So what happened? You tried to ignore-", her hand waved in the air in Sakura's general direction, "-whatever has been building for a while… then… what? It all came to a head one crazy night of hormones?"

"And morning." She had no idea she spoke out loud until Ino gasped, recognition dawning across her pretty features.

"You whore!"

Aaaaaaaaand thank goodness that; despite it being a wonderful Saturday morning, the coffee shop was not packed, and no one was sitting close enough to clearly hear the outburst. Sakura still sunk down further in her seat and wished she was wearing one of the fitted caps hanging in her closet; she could at least, have pulled it low over her head and pretend to disappear for a while.

Two steaming cups were placed in front of them both, and the waitress tried unsuccessfully to hide her smile. She heard enough, to not meet Sakura's eyes, and said to let her know if they needed anything else. "Yes… please, be louder. I don't think they quite heard you in the back." She scolded when they were left alone. Ino waved her hand dismissively, blowing the hot liquid in her cup. Manicured nails tapped the porcelain rhythmically.

"Why had I not seen it? I got zero vibes from either of you, even leading up to it. I saw you over Thanksgiving break and you didn't say a word. I can't believe you tried to keep this from me." Ah, there it was… the bit of hurt finally peeking through. Sakura's gaze softened.

"This wasn't an ongoing thing, it only happened on New Years. I mean, I always thought he was kind of hot, but I never thought to act on anything. I mean, sure we've all been around each other but that was it, really. He was just one of Kiba's 'work friends'. You know that." There was no secret love affair that carried on for months, right under everyone's noses. It was much simpler than that.

"It wasn't…planned." She continued, her hand reaching up to graze the industrial piercing in her ear, a nervous habit. "I was just confused, after. I was still trying to figure some stuff out, and didn't want to make a bigger deal out of what happened, than it already was. Last year, everytime I saw him… I don't know. I just began to pay a little more attention to him then I should have. I don't think he knew, though. At least, I don't think he did. I just kept teasing myself with the thought, but never acted until…"

A sharp gleam entered her ocean colored eyes. "He didn't blow you off, did he? After… I mean."

"No! No… nothing like that. I promise." The killing intent bled away from the blonde's aura, but Sakura tried to put her completely at ease. "I'm serious. I mean, he had to leave after… and it was kind of awkward…-"

"Awkward enough for you; to hop on a plane, twenty-four hours later? To the Philippines?"

"That's not fair. That trip was planned and booked, even before I came home the first time, on Thanksgiving. We made it to France before turning around because of the delay. I figured I'd come home for a bit, while waiting. It's the only reason why I was in the city at all, remember? It just so happen we got word the very next day, after… you know…" She cupped her hands around the hot mug, the warmth seeping into her chilled digits. "When the embassy cleared us, we had to go."

Trailing a fingernail around the rim of her expresso, Ino bit her lip. She sighed, before leaning in.

"He asked about you."

"W-…What?"

Another sigh… before-

"I guess this was a few days after? He came with Kiba to a party. I don't know him that well, but I knew something was up. He never asked about you before then… so why start now? You dodging my texts and calls all but confirmed it for me. I knew something was up." Ino smiled. "I let it slip to Kiba, but he was utterly clueless."

Sakura rested her chin on her fist, elbow propped on the table in a way that would have Mebuki scolding her for lack of manners.

"Tall, rude bastard wouldn't squeal, either. 'Mind your business, Yamanaka', he said. Hah! As if! He should have minded his business... kept his ankle-spanker in his pants, and away from my poor, little, naïve friend." She huffed. The look on Sakura's face was priceless. She wasn't sure what she was about to say, but Ino cut her off. "So you iced him out after, huh? Is that it? That's what happened?"

Sakura shifted in her seat, lashes fluttering as she blinked, picking at the crisp white table cloth.

"He did try to call… sent texts too. I just…" She nibbled on her bottom lip. "It's just that… this was the first time I'd been with anyone since…you know… 'him'. And not just making out, but like… all the way."

Her eyes glinted briefly.

"I don't know… I just let it all get to my head, you know? Making a big deal out of nothing… over thinking everything… getting worked up and-"

She was going to give herself a headache if she kept this up. The more she said out loud, the crazier she thought she sounded. Especially now, when she was forced to face the hidden, deeper issues… things she'd dropped and left in her past.

"Look… we're friends. I love you… so much, you know that. You can tell me anything, and even though it might come off that way… I'm not judging, ok?" A brief pause had her meeting her gaze. "I just don't want you to get in the habit of running, every time something happens. Sometimes, you have to stay and deal with it. And I also don't want you to keep things in."

Sakura winced, immediately on the defensive.

"…That's not fair."

"No… maybe it's not. But it doesn't make it any less true."

"One has nothing to do with the other." She knew where this was going, and she didn't like it. Not one bit.

"You rarely go home…" Ah, and there it was.

"And that makes me a bad person?" Sakura countered, heart rate starting to elevate.

"No-"

"You know why…"

"I know-".

"You fucking know why." She whispered. The unshed tears began to burn, and she blinked rapidly. She tried to take a breath, the air getting caught in her throat and she tried to calm down.

She was quite surprised to find herself so upset… so quickly.

Gods, does that make her such a bad person? Does that make her such a bad person because she didn't want to go home that often… only to be reminded of-

"Can I get you ladies anything else?" The waitress returned, refreshing their water glasses.

"The check please, thanks." Ino replied, reaching under the table to grasp Sakura's knee. The pinkette grabbed her napkin, discreetly wiping the corner of her eyes. When they were left alone once again, Ino gave her a small smile. "I didn't mean to upset you. You know I want to see you happy. That's all… I promise. It just worries me sometimes that you keep a lot bottled in. I don't ever want you to think that you can't come to me."

Gathering her composure, she nodded. She knew Ino was coming from a good place, knew what type of person she was, and where her intentions lie. She returned her smile, letting her know that all was forgiven, even if they agreed to disagree for now.

"So…" The corners of her mouth turned up, the lopsided grin giving her away before she could continue.

"How was it? I hope he knew what he was doing with that thing, and wasn't just mindlessly shoving away."

Sakura almost choked on the still heated coffee, glaring at her around a cough, her throat unconstricting. "Should I even ask how you would know something like that?"

Ino just rolled her eyes.

"Grey sweatpants; last October. You know I don't miss a thing." She winked, as if that explained anything. "Now, back on topic. Was it good? It must have been good for him, to have come to me, asking about you. That's my girl. Been off the pony for a while, but saddled up like a pro!"

Maybe… just maybe, getting up and leaving the table was the best option. It would surely spare any more embarrassment than she already felt.

The waitress returned with Sakura's credit card and receipt, while Ino excused herself to take a trip to the ladies room. Sakura's phone vibrated, and she swiped right to unlock and answer the device without looking, signing her name on the slip of paper in front of her.

"Hello?"

"…Hello?" Sakura tried again, only hearing a faint melody in the background, before the call ended. Looking at the screen, she didn't have long to dwell on the call before Ino made her return to stand next to the table, one hip poked out to the side as she tapped away on her own phone.

"Hey, what are you doing tonight?"

Sakura stood as well, the call from the unlisted number quickly fading from memory. Her eyes lowered in thought. "Not sure… I don't think I had anything planned. Why?"

"Ten-Ten is in town this weekend. We are so going out tonight." She was already leading the way down the street, to where they parked. Even in sneakers, Sakura was hard pressed to keep up… increasing her pace, calling out for her to wait up.

"I'm going to call Chino; see if she can fit us in for blowouts, right now."

:✧･ﾟ･*･ﾟ･✧ B R✧･ﾟ･*･ﾟ･✧:

His body felt strangely cold; despite the fact heat was drifting across him, from the fireplace. There was this persistent, ringing in his ear and he couldn't tell if the noise really was loud… or it was just something he was focused acutely on, instead of the pain.

' Fuck. '

It really hurt to breathe. It felt more like a chore, than a life necessity. A thump could be heard somewhere in the home, but he didn't trust himself to accurately locate where it was coming from. He could gauge that he was tired as hell, and wondered just how long his eyes were previously closed before he opened them (barely)… just a few moments ago. His phone flickered to life, making him squint at the cracked screen. Bloody fingers reached out across the wooden floor, moving slowly… barely able to manage a grip on the device to pull it closer.

Message:

"Dear Valued Customer, it has come to our attention-"

His eyes blurred again, and he blinked hard, twice.

Message:

"-ause of this, we have reversed the following transaction-"

Dark eyes skimmed the text. His thumb pressing a box on the screen.

Message:

"Confirm Transaction Reversal?"

A new payee was chosen; one from recent history near the top of the list, and the selection was quickly made. He accepted the changes, his breath beginning to rattle in his lungs. His fingers scrolled across the screen, trying to press the correct characters. The emoji options came into view; an array of colorful option to choose from. They weren't needed however, and his fumbling fingers tried to get the device to switch back to the qwerty keyboard layout.

He was unsuccessful, and finally choose one as his eyes began to feel heavy.

Message:

"-re about to transfer all available funds. Are you sure?"

The green button was pressed.

Message:

"Transaction Complete"

His fingers begin to cramp, trying to hold his hand steady before he gave in. He let the device go, landing face down on the cracked screen just as he heard muffled footsteps approaching. His chest tightened as he let out a wet cough; his eyes closing for what he thought would only be a moment. He just needed to rest, just for a minute, and he would feel better… he was sure. The room stopped spinning just before darkness claimed him again.

END CHAPTER

Next: Chapter Three

#bluerosefanfics #sasusaku #sakusasu #ss fic #lime #ssfic #ssfanfiction #really blue? you couldn't make it 2 chapters without a little smut?#whitewidowfic

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sacks-of-kittans · 5 years

Note

Is a long Sasuke post reasonable?

SASUKE IS A BITCH

#3rd attempt writting this, I will be going totally off topic but I just wanna bitch about the uchiha clan.

Sorry I was playing the naruto drinking game last night.

Alright so gonna be hella honest I had many many mix feelings about Sasuke so if I say something that may offend you about Sasuke, I watched most of naruto drunk.

So the lesson they teach about Sasuke must have been thrown out the window

So Sasuke is a kid from a cool ass family that is probably the strongest clan in the hidden leaf. Why I say that? His eyes have levels on levels of the sharingan. The hyuuga is really the only clan to really rival it but fails. Do to politics I’m not entirely sure why the whole clan got killed.

Spoilers: you can correct me, but this is what I got out of it. When the nine tails attacked the uchiha didn’t do anything about it even though they can seal the nine tails. The uchiha didn’t cause they’re minding their own business? When the uchiha and senju made the leaf people still kinda cold to the uchiha and the uchiha never forgot? It’s theorized the uchiha made the attack? Anyway the third wants to offer a peaceful plan and the uchiha was planning a secret revolution cause the village was treating them even worse than before. Danzo was like since you kinda like the nine tails prance around and you took the place of hokage, let me do shit since you fuck up a lot. 3rd is like no. Since Itachi is in anbu, Danzo is like kill everyone in the family or your clan is gonna start a revolution. Don’t let them look bad. You can keep your little bro alive so one day he can kill you. So Itachi never betrays the leaf.

So that’s an entire situation I was still fucked up with.

However his clan gets the most in depth explainations. They’re all fire natures. Hyuuga we don’t know, and the other clans fuck them. I wish the Izuka (I think that’s Kiba’s last name) had more time cause you know...dogs. What other things did they do for the village, Kiba sister is a medical ninja, do dogs heal too or? So much. Ino’s family is kinda cool because they have the side hustle flower shop, like how the Uchiha have the police force. Shika and Cho don’t even get that but we learn that Shikamaru has a whole forest with deer in it. And you know fuck Choji. The bug clan and the yamanak should work together for those damn flowers. I wish the hyuuga also had a side hustle. The umazaki family has just a sad past.

What makes Sasuke different from Naruto is that Sasuke knew his parents and brother. And then the world gets flipped. His dad never really shows Sasuke the love we wanted him to have, yeah his mom is like “Sasuke your dad loves you” but we never get to see that. When I first watched naruto and being an edgy preteen I was like why is Sasuke that mad, his dad liked Itachi more. But growing up I realized why Sasuke would be mad about his whole clan getting murdered. I just felt like the family bonding could have been delivered better, espescally since I thought he wanted to avenge his clan and maybe not prove strength.

Design

He is as emo as you can get in a 2013 hot topic. Like look at him having those unnesscary sleeves. To make him less emo they give him fuck boy shorts to balance him out.

In shippuden he wesrs that low low cut robe short

And then he starts looking even more emo and less fuck boy like. He gets daddy vampire emo when we hit Boruto which is the final stage of emo because then you live forever or you die.

Fuck boy vs emo Sasuke.

Fuck boy

All the girls like him even in real life I knew some chicks who wanted that uchiha dick. And looking at his ass, he’s not really that cute. How it degrades the show is that it shows most the girls in the show don’t move on and take some pretty nasty blows from that thot. He even says some mean shit to naruto. NONE OF THEM GAVE UP ON SASUKE. Him being like that kinda made me pissed. Like I would have killed if Sasuke was like “Yo Sakura I love you now” and her being like “yeah.. I need you to prove it” not some shit I have to pretend to see. Karin, Ino (hinted) Sakura, and Naruto all still love his moody ass. Karin he tells Sakura to kill her cause she’s replaceable. He calls Sakura annoying a hundred times. Rejected Ino when she gave him a friendship sunflower. And put naruto through all the shit. No I’m not blaming the other characters for still loving him, it’s he’s not that cool . He’s op as fuck in Boruto but it was a lot more fun to watch when he struggled against Lee, Gaara and naruto.

Emo

My family this my family that oh Itachi was just saving the village the whole time? Well fuck the village. I get why he hates the village for making his brother do that shit, but I also hate the 180 he makes when naruto/Kakashi becomes Hokage. “Secretly helping the village”. No he just hates being there and feels like he bare minimum. If he really wanted to avenge his family and clan he’d be a better father. I also hated how he didn’t really see naruto as an equal. Naruto’s last name was Umazaki. Which may have been a small clan or an abused clan or whatever, but they’re known for taming the ninetails. I also wished the umazaki was treated better in the leaf since One of the members was married to the first hokage and being hokage seems to be like the gig man. Sasuke was like that bad friend that had to be better than you and you take the challenge and actually are better so then they just run away.

Im not dong development since I didn’t really see how things changed in a normal way. It went from “I hate that dork naruto”-> “I wanna be stronger than naruto, so I’m leaving the leaf and working with a villain”—>”I’m killing my brother and now I hate the leaf village”->”I’m gonna help the leaf so the world doesn’t end”?-> “now that it’s all done, I’m gonna go on a journey and come back and marry Sakura”->”although I wanna avenge my clan I’m leaving again and telling nobody but naruto where I’m at”->”I like hanging out with naruto’s son”

To be fair between I hate lead and world doesn’t end was when naruto st the time was stopped getting dubbed.

Relation ships

Kakashi

Kakashi knew Sasuke was strong and how the village saw Sasuke, like they saw Itachi almost, there’s no way he’ll disappoint the village. But Sasuke does. Kakashi is like whatever I had enough people die on me where you little don’t phase me. He also always shows how much he likes his other two student “Sakura just wants to help you” and naruto just wants to save you. Even though Sasuke was his least favorite student he didn’t fall short with Sasuke and taught him shit and even called Sasuke smart I think during the first mission.

I wish we saw Sasuke and Neji fight, two cool clans fighting would have been cool.

I wish there was a filler where Sasuke and Choiji hang out and Sasuke learns he has other interest. Like cook, or Sasuke teaches Choiji how to do a cool punch and Choiji teaches something more peaceful.

I would have love to see him and Ino talk about their rivals and how they have to get stronger. They go on a date and it doesn’t work out. Something silly like that and then the Ino crush on Sasuke disappears forever.

Like honestly if he just bonded with more people (even though he thinks it’s dumb) it would have been harder for him to leave the leaf BUT tbh it would be more emotional and show how desperate he is to get stronger to literally accept help from a mega villain.

Sakura

Listen I would be fine with those to ending up together if they just fucking explain it. I’ve talked about these two a lot and I think Sasuke could have been better. I don’t care if he wasn’t a people person but it literally makes Sakura a strong ass ninja look bad for marrying a dude that never had an interest in her. Even Tsunade when reading a book was like what is this shit. I wish Sasuke actually proved his love for her other than getting her pregnant and leaving

Naruto

So even though naruto was more in love with Sasuke than Sasuke was, Sasuke still loved naruto. He didn’t know what to do with his feelings and misidentified them as rage cause I’ve done that. He also doesn’t stop thinking about naruto when he leaves, but unlike naruto he has other stuff to do like killing his brother. Yeah Sasuke was shitty but he does treat naruto better than his wife. He’s talked to naruto even on his journey and their bloody ripped off arms connect at the end. Bet naruto would have made a heart top out of it.

So I know it seems like I hate Sasuke

It’s not entirely hate, it’s just kinda poor writting

Now why I say that, a lot of the things he did doesn’t make much sense. Like I wish there was more to him wanting to get strong other than beating naruto. After rewatching that, it is about his family but a lot more about naruto. Orochimaru is an evil dude but Sasuke agrees. Team taka acts like they still like him even though he treated Karin bad at times, but it’s fine everything is peachy. He treated a lot of people in his life like shit and thought his apology to them was to just go on a journey instead of actually taking the time to talk to the people he hurt... but that would give other characters more screen time the writers never want to do. SHINO SHOULD HAVE BEEN LIKE “boy if I went on your rescue mission years ago, you would have never left”because Sasuke leaving hurt characters like Shino too. There’s no true resolve with him and that’s why I can’t really think of a lesson for him. He was an asshole who didn’t really redeem himself. Yeah he got married to a girl he was shit to, but is that really the message we wanna give people? He got all these cool ass powers but he does a lot of shitty things that only his daughter calls him out on. If they were gonna make naruto as long as they did they should have spent another 30 seconds at looking at Sasuke and being like “wow he hurt all those around him and were not gonna do much” yeah he saved the world but everyone was in that dire situation and he didn’t really wanna die. I just feel his character never got a real completion

#ask #anon #anti naruto ending #naruto

33 notes · View notes

vesperlionheart · 6 years

Note

Ooooooh. How about "You are mine now. Don't look at anyone else." with MinaSaku??? 😈😈😈😈

Sakura leaned over the railing, wondering if her choice of attire was really appropriate considering how much of the back was missing. It was one of the few nice dresses she had left that would help her look like she belonged on the skybridge. No one walked into the fancy lounge in anything less.

From so high up she could see much more of the village and marveled at the build up. Nearly seven years later and it was unrecognizable from the dinky outpost she had grown up in. It was almost as if people were waiting with their inventions and their technologies for the world to be ready for peace.

Sometimes it felt like too much, especially on nights where she started off alone and was left by herself for too long. She wanted to go back to being sixteen and fighting for her life. Back then at least she felt like she was doing something important.

“You wore the dress.”

Sakura had felt his chakra signature the moment he stepped off the lift onto the floor, but hadn’t turned to give her position away until he called out to her on his own. She inhaled one last, free breath, and then turned slowly around.

“It is what you requested, is it not?” Sakura asked, tone cordial and civil. She crossed one hand in front of the other, keeping her posture perfect and poised.

“Of course,” Minato Namikaze sighed, looking blissfully pleased all over again as he took in the sight of her. “But you’d look amazing in anything, you know.”

“You might have mentioned that once before,” she replied, glancing sideways at the few others lazing about on sofas and at card tables. “But as long as you’re happy that’s all that matters.”

“I’m very happy,” he cheered, approaching her with his hands in the pockets of his suit trousers. He wore a fitted charcoal gray three piece suit with a floral embellished vest piece. He stopped just arm’s reach from where she stood at the railing and frowned down at something he saw. “You’re not wearing a necklace?”

“It wouldn’t suit the dress,” Sakura explained, touching the high collar. It was high and modest in the front, but once she turned all her angles and what seemed like miles of pale flesh were free to behold.

“You’re not wearing any jewelry,” he remarked, brushing back the strands of hair that framed her face. He touched one of her naked earlobes and then drew back. “Was there a reason for that?”

Sakura flushed, setting her jaw as she decided to not be embarrassed in front of such a man. “I don’t have anything nice enough for the place you said you wanted to go. I’m a kunoichi and a medic, not a-not suited to something like this.”

But he didn’t seem upset. Instead he rocked back on his heels and rustled around in his pocket for something. His hand came out holding a long thin box he held out for her to watch as he popped it open. Inside was a thin strand of fine gold dotted with white diamonds that resembled stars in a sky. Sakura swallowed, feeling too light on her feet for a moment.

“That’s…” she couldn’t finish the words as he cheered, removing the gift from it’s box and moving to slip it over her head. It hug low and sparkled whenever she turned. On a black dress, she couldn’t help but think it looked like the night sky.

He pulled her hair out from inside the chain and kissed the side of her face with cheerful affection. “For you. I’m glad you didn’t wear anything, this way I get to spoil my girl. Next time I’ll get you something for your ears.”

“Minato, you don’t have to. It’s too much I can’t-”

He pressed a single finger to her lips and she went still, afraid that she had upset him somehow. She had seen his episodes, even if they never happened because of her. Like anyone else brought back from the dead, something was a little off inside Minato Namikaze, and it would likely never be made right until the jutsu that held him in the land of the living ran out. Seven years later it showed no signs of weakening, but he was stronger and richer than ever, inheriting lands from the Fire Daimyo because of his Namikaze heritage and famed conquests.

Tsunade and Kakashi had been desperate to appease him in a constructive way once they noticed his deterioration. He was more brilliant than ever and they couldn’t risk losing his service to the village.

‘He’s always had a soft spot for Sakura,’ Naruto had mentioned during one of their meetings.

Kakashi and Tsunade had been hesitant to make their former pupil an assistant to the reanimated young lord, but there were few others they could trust so well and Sakura wanted to be useful.

Naruto had been right. Minato Namikaze had a soft spot for her that only grew softer as the years went by. Naruto had married and Hinata was even expecting their first child, but Minato hadn’t been interested in getting to know the new family any more.

“Have dinner with me instead,” he told her one night when she had encouraged him to visit his son and daughter in law.

Sakura should have seen the warning signs for what they were and gotten out when it was still safe to leave, but she had been foolish and too trusting to do what was best for herself personally. She went to dinner with him once and that was it. There was no convincing Minato that Sakura wasn’t meant to be his next new life partner.

“I’ll hand over all the land to this village if you’ll marry me,” he told her over a dinner too expensive to taste.

That had been a week ago, and her excuse to ask for more time had run its worth. He had booked them a table on the sky deck for dinner and she knew what the night would be like. She still didn’t know what her answer would be, but she was dreading the reveal.

Sakura blinked, remembering where she was and looked back up into the sky blue eyes of her best friend’s dad. He was watching her without the usual boyish grin.

“You don’t like my gift?”

Sakura touched the gold of the necklace. “It’s too lovely for me, you shouldn’t have spent your money on it. I haven’t even told you what my answer is yet.”

Minato Namikaze smiled, but it was a strained thing and if she knew him better she might have guessed there was real fear in his eyes as he stared back at her.

“It doesn’t matter, you still deserve it. I want you to have it no matter what.” His hand reached up to touch the side of her face, running the back of his knuckles over her soft skin. “No matter what.”

“You are too generous,” Sakura sighed.

Minato laughed, dropping his hand from her face and stepping back. “What’s the point of money if you can’t spend it to make the people you cherish happy?”

Sakura didn’t know what to do with his words, so she cast her eyes about the room once more and nodded to the far areas where tables were set up against the glass. “Dinner, then? You must be hungry after such a long day.”

She offered him her arm and he took it graciously. At the touch she knew there was a nervous energy that was building like stray lightning in his body and it made her all the more anxious for what she would say. What did she want to say?

She felt him help her into her seat and push her in, and numbly she felt the the fabric of the table cloth as she rested her palms on the edge and glanced outside, seeing everything and nothing as her brain ran dizzy thoughts over and over again.

“You okay?” he asked, reaching across the table to touch her hand and then pull it into his to hold. He grinned encouragingly, something he did for very few other people. Not even Naruto.

“You asked me last time we met to think something over.”

He let go of her hand and she saw his smile fall away. His shoulders dropped and her heart almost hurt for the reaction she inspired in him. It wasn’t her fault for making him feel anything and if he was reasonable he would understand that.

“You’ve thought it over,” he guessed without a smile.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what I was going to say when I got here, and now that I’m at the table talking about it I still don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

He hadn’t been expecting that, and it showed on his face. “You still haven’t made up your mind? Is-is it because there is someone else? Naruto said you used to be close to your other teammate but he-I didn’t think he’d be a safe ch-choice and I-uh, or is-is it something with me?”

She hadn’t expected him to bumble through his words the way he did. She had worried he’d grow upset and dark and cold the way he was when foreign dignitaries tried to shoehorn him in meetings, or worse, when he was deployed on intelligence gathering missions that went south. When he floundered he reminded her a bit of Naruto.

“It’s not Sasuke. I gave up on that ship long ago,” she chuckled with self deprecating humor even as her mind drifted back to a pale face that never seemed to turn towards her.

“Is it because this was arranged? I know it might sound old fashioned and I’m not the best person to defend such customs, but arranged marriages aren’t as horrible as some might lead you to believe. An-and really it’s not as bad as the blind marriages, since we already know each other and know we like each other and-” His voice stopped like it hit a wall and he slowly pulled his hand back to his lap under the table. “Or…that I like you at least.”

“You offered the village a lot for my hand, that’s all I could think about. But then I reminded myself that this was a marriage I’d be investing the rest of my life in, and I couldn’t take such a commitment so lightly for the sake of even my village if I didn’t think I could see you as someone other than my best friend’s dad.”

He chuckled but it sounded almost wet, like he was forcing the sound out of his throat. “Ah, but we’re not so far apart in age as that, since my reanimation.” He swallowed loudly and shifted in his seat. “But I suppose I could understand how this might be awkward for you.”

Sakura forced herself to laugh and was proud at how it didn’t sound as terrible as she thought it would in her head. It seemed to perk him up a bit. “I guess awkward is a good word for it. I guess it doesn’t feel real.”

Sakura realized she didn’t want to say no and reject him outright, but she felt she couldn’t say yes and accept his offer as it was. She didn’t feel right moving in either direction, so she pulled back and did what she thought was safe.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re within your rights. There’s nothing to apologize for.” He smiled and it looked faded and washed out, enough that it scared her. “Can I at least treat you out to the rest of the dinner?”

There wasn’t any temper or callous anger like she feared there would be. Instead of power, the man across the table felt like he was made of broken pieces and it scared her more. “Of course, but you don’t have to.”

“I want to,” he whispered, daring another sad smile.

Sakura nodded and settled back into her seat.

Like a bolt of bad luck, Sasuke was back in the village and sniffing around for her that next week. She avoided him as best she could, but he knew where she worked and they ended up running into each other when he requested she take a look at his eyes. She was one of the only people with the medical knowledge to properly treat him.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.

“I know,” she answered.

Sasuke made a sound in his throat she was supposed to interpret, but she was done reaching out to make up for his lack of effort. If he wanted to communicate with her he could use real words.

“The dobe said you were busy, is there a reason for that?” he asked as she updated something on his clipboard. She didn’t bother looking up to face him and she could tell that annoyed him. Good.

“I don’t know, Sasuke, maybe because I am actually, in fact….busy.” She glanced up through her lashes with an unimpressed look. “You were expecting some other answer?”

“I heard you were seeing someone.”

“That,” she interjected with a hard note, “is personal and none of your business. Now, how long have you had irritation in your left eye?”

“There isn’t.”

Sakura frowned and folded the clipboard under her arm. “You did not just lie to my staff about something this serious for such a stupid, petty reason as gossip.”

“It’s Naruto’s dad! That’s disgusting and you don’t know him.”

“You’re fine, I’m checking you off, bye,” Sakura sighed, signing her form and heading to the door. She opened it for him and turned around, arms crossed, waiting for Sasuke to take the hint and leave before he opened his pretty mouth and said anything else. She should have known better. Seven years later and he was still a jackass. A pretty jackass, but still a jackass.

“The Founders Day Celebration, are you going there with him?” he insisted.

Sakura tapped the door with her toe and nodded to it. “Here’s the door, sir. If you’re fine enough to stand and bitch on your own I’ll be heading out on my own. Have a great rest of your day.”

“Sakura, listen to me-”

But she was already in the hallway walking away. She didn’t bother to store his clip chart away properly, but flung it onto the back counter for later, debating on if she should even file his work or not. She knew she would, because she was straight laced enough to hold her professionalism above all else, but she really didn’t want to look at anything with his name on it.

She heard him call out to her once, a sound of frustration more than anything else, but he didn’t follow her and he didn’t lower himself enough to chase after her and look desperate for her attention. His pride wouldn’t let him fall that far.

“But are you going to the celebration tonight?” Shizune asked later that day when Sakura went to her older friend to vent.

“I was planning on it, but now I don’t know.” Sakura opened up a bag of cookies and started to pop them into her mouth one after the other. When Shizune merely raised her brows Sakura just groaned. “It’s been of those days, don’t judge me with your eyes.”

“He was that bad?”

“No, not really,” Sakura groaned. “But he was supposed to be better. He was supposed to be, something more than just a-than just a gossip hound. It’s been seven years since he got off his first horse of bullshit but he’s still riding something stupid. He hasn’t written in months. He never asked-he never asked me before if I was anything to him, he just assumed and….”

Sakura dropped into the chair and sank into the cushions. She pulled the cookie bag closer to her chest, wrinkling the packaging.

“He didn’t even want me.”

“Honey,” Shizune cooed, standing and walking over to where Sakura was having her meltdown.

It was so rare that Sakura even had vulnerabilities that could trigger such a reaction. The last time she had lost it had been after eight bottles of hard sake and three twelve hour days of intense work on ungrateful patients who wanted nothing more than to undo all her hard work.

Sakura numbly slid another cookie into her mouth and munched slowly.

“It’s never going to work. It never has and it never will so I shouldn’t be surprised. It’s been seven years and I’m already spent. I can’t do this thing where I-where I try and I wait.”

“You weren’t waiting,” Shizune corrected. “You were moving on and trying new things, new people, going on dates even.”

Sakura remembered turning down Minato and felt it for the mistake that it was. He had his issues and his risks, but the longer they stayed apart the more clarity she saw him with.

He had a lot of trouble connecting with people, especially people he was expected to be close with, like his son’s wife Hinata. But since their last dinner together Sakura had heard he made the effort and was becoming a sort of regular in their lives. He had stopped going away on missions and was taking up more desk work. The land he had offered to give to the village if she married him had been signed over already, and thanks to his connections new lines of merchants were coming in to help sell and develop goods. The further Sakura got from Minato the more of her mistake she saw.

Sakura lifted her eyes from the cookies and stared at Shizune, feeling the tears gathering. “I made a huge mistake.”

“Can you fix it at the celebration tonight?” her older friend asked.

Sakura swallowed, remembering the gold chain of diamonds and the view from up high. “I don’t know.”

“Is there a chance and is it worth taking it if you went tonight?” Shizune asked again. A soft but knowing smile telling Sakura that her problems were already well known and not so much a secret.

Sakura licked the crumbs off her lips. “Will you help me with my hair?”

Shizune just laughed.

Later that night the lantern light made the gold clips in her hair twinkle. Her hair had been curled and brushed into soft waves that framed her face. She didn’t wear the same dress as last time, the occasion didn’t suit it, but she made sure she paired her dark black leggings with a thick cable knit sweater that swooped low in the back and showed off plenty. Everyone seemed content to lounge in comfortable clothes even if a few others were dressing up traditionally.

Sakura switched the charcoal clutch from one hand to the other, nervously glancing about for a familiar shock of gold in the crowd. She knew he would be somewhere at the celebration, he was being honored, after all.

A few other friends stepped out to wish her well and greet her, but she politely slipped out of their conversations with the explanation that she had someone she needed to find. Someone teased her about seeing Sasuke earlier and she almost flinched, but didn’t bother correcting them.

“Naruto!” she hollered over the crowds.

Her friend turned and waved, wading through people to get to her. Hinata was with her family talking to her cousins and sister about the pregnancy.

“Hey, we were just talking about you. How have ya been?” Naruto asked, reaching out to take her into a hug without thinking twice.

Sakura squeezed him once before pulling away. “Is your dad here tonight?” She saw his frown start and quickly rushed to add an explanation. “I want to talk to him. I’m not trying to avoid him.”

“Oh!” Naruto blinked, seemingly having not expected to hear that. “Yeah, he should be around here somewhere. I didn’t think you would want to find him though. He’s been-um, he-if you haven’t seen him recently you might be surprised.”

Sakura felt something in her heart stutter. “Surprised?”

Naruto shrugged. “It’s the Edo Tensei, I think it’s running out. You can see some of the cracks and the eye color is starting to fade too.”

Sakura felt a knife in her heart and all the regret swelled up like salt to antagonize the wound. “No.”

Naruto’s smile was sad, but he took one of her hands and pulled her closer for comfort. “He’s fine about it though, says he was lucky for the time he had.”

“I’ve been an idiot Naruto, and I need to fix it.”

“Are you sure you want to? I mean, I just told you…the old man doesn’t have a lot of time left.”

Sakura drew comfort from his touch. “I need to do what I can, I need to do what I know I should have to set things right.”

Naruto watched her for a moment longer and then nodded. “Okay, I’ll help out as much as I can. I think he was with Kakashi last I saw. Good luck tracking down that old goat.” He tugged her along, glancing about before looking back over his shoulder at her worried expression. “I guess you saw Sasuke then?”

“He saw me, it’s different and unrelated,” Sakura grumbled.

“Okay, but when they ask, know that I like you more because he also asked me earlier to help find you but I’m going to pretend I forgot since you don’t seem to be interested in getting another meeting with the Uchiha.”

Sakura snorted. “Understatement of the year.”

She spotted him first, trailing after a hunch only to find him chewing on a stick of squid behind the seafood stands. He saw her and went stock still like a deer in lantern lights, it made it easier for her to reach him if he was too stunned to run away.

“I finally found you,” Sakura gasped, stopping with her hands on her knees, nearly out of breath. She didn’t want to think about how her shortness of breath was less from the running and more from the anxiety.

“Sakura,” he simply greeted, voice meek but pleased.

She looked up and saw the signs of wear Naruto had mentioned. His eyes were starting to adapt the dark color that often came with reanimated corpses, and lines like the ones seen in broken pottery cracked along his neck and jaw.

“I should leave you two alone now and find Hinata again. Haha, take care guys, bye dad!” Naruto called, running backwards and nearly knocking into someone who was just fast enough to draw back in time to save their food.

“You are a hard man to find,” Sakura sighed, approaching the bench and pointing to the empty spot beside him. “May I?”

“Of-of course,” he stuttered, moving over to offer her more room. “Would you like a stick?”

Sakura chuckled at his basket of fried squid. “No thanks, I ate way too many cookies during my break at work. Stress eating.”

“Has it been rough?” he asked.

She waved her hands around and then laughed. “Not really, just some patients can be a real handful in the emotional sense. Sometimes I hate that we have to treat everyone, regardless of relation.”

“That does sound stressful, but I know you’re a dutiful worker. You’re a boon to wherever you work.” He licked his lips free of salt and wiped his hand on his pant leg, trying to wipe free the grease. “You look well though.”

He was blushing and Sakura was absolutely delighted. “Really? Thank you. I almost didn’t have the energy to come tonight, much less dress up for it.”

He glanced sideways at her on the bench, and with her leaning forward he could see the deep cut to her sweater’s back. He swallowed and licked his lips once more, tearing his eyes free as the tips of his ears turned red.

When he spoke his voice almost cracked. “You still look amazing.”

After a day of frustrations and scares and multiple low points, Sakura finally felt like the smile on her face was meant to be there. Making him fluster made her feel like a stroked cat set to purring. She was done hesitating.

“Hey, I was a real asshole last time we were together.”

He ducked his head and shook it slightly. “No, Sakura you don’t need to-”

“Shut up and let me finish.” She reached for his hand and he jolted. Sakura stood and walked around to stand in front of him and took another deep breath. “I was a fool and a jerk and I’m still somewhat of a fool and I can be a jerk at times but I don’t want to be an even bigger fool and miss out on trying to fix one of my mistakes.”

He looked up slowly and the world seemed to slow and fade out. She couldn’t smell the fish or hear the laughter or see the colors from the lights. It was just the two of them for a heartbeat’s moment.

“I made a mistake when I told you no and I’m regretting it. I know I don’t have any right to say this now after I’ve been so horrible, but I need you to know I regret what I said to you last time. I wish I could go back and change it all and fix what I said.”

“What would you fix?” he asked, voice soft enough that she thought he might not believe what he was hearing.

“I would have told you yes.”

He pulled his hand back and fumbled, reaching into his pockets for something and finding it eventually. It was a small silk pouch with a seal on the outside. He opened it up and let a diamond ring tumble into his palm. He reached for her hand with his free one, like he was afraid she would run on him if he didn’t.

“I’ve had this on me since that night! I’ve been carrying it around since then and I couldn’t bring myself to return it, but I didn’t think I’d ever get to use it.” He swallowed again. “Can I?”

Sakura felt herself nod. “It’s not an arranged marriage anymore, is it?”

He laughed, taking her hand and spreading out her fingers to slip the ring on. “Not if you don’t want it to be. You chose me after rejecting my proposal, after all.”

Sakura was a balloon she felt so light, but her heart was hammering so fast she didn’t know how that was possible. She felt it all over, a wild sensation of elation and anxiety in a good sort of way. She felt the tears on her face as Minato reached up to wipe them free.

“For however long I have, I want to spend it with you.”

“Me too. No matter how long or how short, you and only you.”

He drew her close and pulled her to his chest, holding her like he was afraid she would float away without his arms to keep her grounded. She felt him kiss the crown of her head and giggled at the touch. She had been kissed before, but his soft affections made her feel far more alive than ever before.

“You’re really okay with an old man like me? The Uchiha, he’s not… a-are you sure?”

When she nodded into his chest he laughed, pulling back enough to tilt her chin up. She blinked at the missing cracks on his neck and the brightness of his eyes. There were ghosts of them left on his skin, fading right before her eyes.

“I’m yours,” she promised.

He hummed gladly. “Yeah. You’re mine now, so don’t look at anyone else,” he teased.

Bonus (optional ending)

Minato Namikaze stood up and wiped the knife clean again. “I thought I told you last time you came here to stay away. Was I not clear then?”

Sasuke spit blood onto the grass, holding onto his side with the only hand he had. There was sweat across his brow from the failed counter jutsu he had fumbled through.

“You’re not supposed to be like this. She thinks you’re-”

The knife dug deep into the bark of the tree beside Sasuke’s face, crackling with stray lightning. “I am hers, you insolent brat. Don’t you dare think you have any grounds to threaten us, to influence her thoughts against me. You know nothing.”

“You are a monster,” Sasuke hissed.

There was a darkness in the older man’s eyes as he pulled back. “Yes, but I’m her monster, so remember that next time you try to poison her against me.”

#MinaSaku #I need more minasaku #dark daddy kink #shhhh #I'm tired #I need a nap #I like the dark lover angle #Sakura Haruno #Sakura #minato namikaze #Minato #my writing #fanfiction

539 notes · View notes

the-formerone · 6 years

Text

and here’s my submission for the @narutogiftexchange! I got @blackkatmagic, who requested "ShikaKiba arranged marriage!au with mutual pining and a happy ending. Maybe an emphasis on clan traits and the differences between them?". i hope i did it some justice! it’s .... much longer than i originally anticipated, but hopefully, it’s up to snuff!

brown eyes steal me Word count: 10,213 Pairing: ShikaKiba Rating: T Summary: "You planted a -," "I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there." "Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original, but cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

"You're shitting me."

Hana is hiding her laughter behind her hand, and their mother has her arms folded across her chest, one eyebrow raised as if Kiba is the one being unreasonable.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Tsume drums her clawed fingers against her hip.

"Curse one more time under my roof," she hums, "see what happens."

Kiba ducks his head, rolling his eyes as he does. Hana snickers, elbows on the dinner table. Their mother stands above them, looking ridiculous as she always does in that stupid pink apron of hers. She's twirling a ladle in one hand, brandishing it like she's just waiting for the right moment to smack Kiba over the back of the head with it.

"You are of marrying age," Hana says, cupping her chin in her hand. "It only makes sense that ma's been getting some offers for your hand."

Kiba rubs the heels of his hands against his eyes. He's not - he is not entirely sure what he's supposed to be making of this. Arranged marriages weren't really uncommon in the shinobi world. They helped preserve bloodlines, helped enhance kekkei genkai. They were also good for economics; combining families meant combining wealth and resources.

But the Inuzuka weren't the most sought after clan when it came to those kinds of matches. Before their clan and the Hatake had split, when they had more prestige, sure, but in this day and age? Not particularly.

The Inuzuka were too brash, too 'difficult'. Which essentially meant that none of the smaller clans understood how the Inuzuka operated, and the larger clans were too well off to need a match with them.

The Inuzuka were a mid tier clan; sure, they had a seat on the clan council, but they didn't have as much sway as the Uchiha or the Hyūga. Even the Yamanaka had more sway because whichever way they voted was a sure indication of where the Akimichi and Nara would stand.

But Kiba was Tsume's second child. Kind of a runt next to Hana as far as their family was concerned, but they were born for different reasons. Hana's father had been a distant relative of the Hatake, and she had more wolf in her for that. She had been born to lead. Kiba's dad had been from a family of raccoon dogs, which clearly had seemed like a good idea until he had gone feral and his mom had to scare him off.

Kiba had been a love baby. Which was lucky, in that he didn't really get most of the responsibility for the clan foisted on him, and unlucky in the fact that since the moment he figured out what sex was, his mother had been sure to be teasingly lewd about how much she enjoyed the process of making him. Which was suitably mortifying for a thirteen year old.

"Make Hana get married," he grumbles, narrowing his eyes up at his mother. "She's the heir."

Tsume snorts at that, twirling the ladle. Kiba watches as the light glints off of it, preparing to duck or dodge as he might have to.

"I haven't picked my heir yet," she says, light as the breeze shifting through the window.

Kiba rolls his eyes. As if. The Inuzuka had been matriarchal since their inception. The only time a man led the family was in times of absolute crisis. In the Warring States period, the four year old Inuzuka Chiharu had assumed the mantle of clan head even though her older brother Tadashi was seventeen and clearly in a better position to lead them.

Then again, great-great-granny Chiharu had been a badass in her own right. Kiba may have gotten his tattoos at ten because he showed promise, but Chiharu had gotten hers at three. Which was obscene and had never happened since even though from what he's heard, Hana could have done it earlier than seven (that wolf blood at work), and their mom had gotten hers at six (Tsume had been born ridiculous).

"Besides," Tsume says, as she turns back into the kitchen and begins ladling the nikujaga into bowls, "Hana has several suitors. And you don't have any."

Kiba does not really need to be reminded that he isn't dating anyone. And that he hasn't since that fiasco with Naruto when they were fifteen. It hadn't worked out even in the slightest. Which was fine. It was fun while it lasted, and Kiba had learned a lot about how sex with another guy could work (theoretically; they hadn't actually ever made it all that far) but they were too alike for each other's tastes and being friends seemed better than dating someone who was essentially themselves.

"Hana's dating a snake," Kiba returns. "That doesn't exactly a suitor make. And Akimichi Maruten, which is okay, I guess. At least he isn't in his thirties."

Hana turns to him, smiling in that pretty way she does before she opens up a summon's mouth and shoves its medicine inside.

"Be nice," she chides, looking terribly like their mother.

At least Tsume had the grace to sound mean when she looked mean. Hana's face was too kind and it made her all the more frightening.

"Oh, and Iruka-sensei," he adds, trying not to stick his tongue out. Knowing his academy teacher had a thing for his sister was just as weird as knowing Mitarashi was barking up that tree, too. "I'm not sure how well dolphins and dogs mix. And all that's without considering Shushin no Shisui gets tongue tied when you walk in the room."

Hana reaches out and Kiba ducks back, but not in enough time to escape her fingers pinching down on his cheek.

"I'm pretty sure I taught you manners when we were kids," she says, but the pinch is as light as the smile on her face.

She's not upset with him. Kiba can tell she's more embarrassed than anything else. It was common for Inuzuka clan heads to take more than one partner depending on where their blood was; those with more wolf in them like Hana typically stuck with one, while those with more dog like their mother would have several.

It's clear Hana hadn't thought she was that hot on the market until it was pointed out.

"You did," Kiba says, handling the pinch with more grace than he would have when he was twelve, "but when mom came back, she taught me the opposite."

Tsume slams down the tray of bowls on the dining table with enough force to crack it. Thankfully, the Inuzuka dining table had seen Tsume's wrath for longer than Kiba had his teeth. He's actually pretty sure he teethed on one of the table legs now that he thinks about it.

"Do you want to be a brat or do you want to eat?" she asks.

Hana lets go of his cheek and starts doling out rice for the three family members, and Tsume unloads the tray, setting a bowl of soup in front of each of them.

"How did anyone know I was even - ," He has to take a breath, fighting down the urge to roll his eyes as he says it, "Of 'marriageable' age?"

Tsume starts eating first, picking up her bowl of beef and potato stew and attacking it like it's her first meal of the day.

"All the brats in your year are of age," she says around a mouthful of thinly sliced beef. She says it like Kiba's an idiot who can't keep track of time. Which is only half true. "It came up at the last clan council meeting."

Kiba nods slowly, eyes tracking to Hana who pointedly doesn't look at him. Tsume may not have named her heir, but she did take both of them to council meetings on occasion. Never the both of them at the same time, though. He had thought Hana seemed a little too perky towards the end of last week; she had come home smelling like she knew a secret. That was typical enough for a shinobi; Kiba was used to that smell. But if he had known it had something to do with him, he would've been twelve times more irritating about it as he had been.

"So what, all my year mates are getting married off?" he asks, lifting his bowl of rice so he can start eating.

"Looks that way," is all Tsume says.

Kiba valiantly doesn't roll his eyes and he starts eating. He can guess who's going to be married which way. Hinata and Neji had been a sure bet ever since they were kids, even though nobody liked the idea at the time. They were genetically cousins and siblings, which made Kiba feel uncomfortable down to his bones and also Neji was a piece of shit when they were younger. But the kids from that match would be absurdly strong.

Sakura had gotten pretty terrifying lately, and her being so cozy with the Godaime made her prime real estate for any of the noble clans that wanted an in. Kiba wasn't sure of who had kids young enough to marry her; Sakura was one confidence boost away from being the top bitch of the Twelve and he doubted she would suffer anyone over five years older or younger than her. That knocked out the Shimura and the Sarutobi for sure.

He'd think the Uchiha were a safe bet; there were plenty of guys in that clan that were still single. Sasuke would be inadvisable considering his mountain sized crush on Naruto. Yeah, those two had pretty much been born a package deal. It was probably only a matter of time before Kushina as the Uzumaki clan head made an offer to the Uchiha.

Ino, Chouji, and Shikamaru couldn't be with each other for the sake of preserving the Ino-Shika-Chou dynamic, which meant any of them were up for grabs. Ino and Shino would probably be a decent pair, all things considered. Though she wasn't the biggest fan of bugs, she spent a lot of time working her family's flower shop, which meant she understood the symbiosis between plants and insects.

Tenten would be a reasonable match for Chouji if she hadn't declared herself queen of the lesbians after she lost that fight to Temari when they were twelve.

Which really only left Shikamaru. Which didn't need to make Kiba's heart hiccup inside of him, but did anyway, which was fine.

"Well who's left?" he asks, probably punching too much bravado into his voice. "There aren't enough girls to go around."

Hana shoots him a glare for that, but Tsume just keeps eating.

"Surrogacy -,"

"Exists, I know," Kiba says, cutting his sister off before she can lecture him. "I got the talk at the academy, you don't have to remind me."

And he very sincerely didn't want to be reminded of that awful video and lecture he had to sit through about the dark ages of sexism and how kunoichi only very recently had the same rights and privileges as male shinobi and that the population of kunoichi had been decimated during the Second and Third Wars to destroy the morale of the villages that employed them and war crimes and statistics and stress and wasn't it so wonderful that Orochimaru had developed his innovative in vitro fertilization processes because now anyone could have a baby with anyone and kunoichi didn't have to leave their careers and thus weaken the village by being out of commission for two years blah, blah, blah, he got it, okay?

The Inuzuka had never had a problem producing women who could handle the stress of shinobi life. That was every other clan's problem.

"Is your real question who's asked if you're on the market?" Tsume asks while she portions out herself a second bowl of soup.

Kiba shrugs.

"Am I allowed to know?"

He's aware that clan council conversations can be top secret, the inside ears only type of thing and he doesn't want to get his mother in trouble by asking her to talk. Then again, he knows the story of how one time, she got court martialed during the Third War by someone stupid enough to think she'd commit treason by trading secrets with the enemy.

The Uchiha had their ridiculous Curse of Hatred that made them only give a shit about their family, but the Inuzuka had the curse of caring-too-goddamn-much-about-everything-and-everyone-we-say-is-ours, which was a long way of saying you couldn't accuse a loyal dog of doing bad without getting bitten back.

"It's your future, pipsqueak," Tsume drawls. "Ask away."

Kiba narrows his eyes, suddenly suspicious that this is some kind of test. He knows that Hana and his mother aren't opposed to scheming together against him. He hadn't liked taking baths as a kid (Tsume's brand of tough love followed into washing hair, and Kiba got a lot of shampoo in his eyes as a kid because of it) and the two of them had ganged up on him to get him into the tub more times than he can count.

But this is his future. His future saddled with another person. He doesn't think they'd play lightly with that. He's well aware that the Inuzuka deal with divorce well (divorce but never separation; Hana's father still lived on the compound even though the marriage hadn't worked out. He and Tsume were still good friends. But Kiba's father? Kiba's father was gone, and nothing could bring him back without putting the clan in further danger) but he also knows that they wouldn't want that for him if they could help it.

So they've already picked someone they think will stick with him. Out of stubbornness or a desire to please their own clan has yet to be seen. They also probably already chose somebody who wasn't promised to someone else, like Naruto and Sasuke were (essentially) promised to one another.

Hana had a couple of men in her dating pool which meant that having future Inuzuka brats running around wasn't Tsume's primary objective. That only left resources and economics as a reason, that and clan politics.

He tries to think of who could possibly want anything the Inuzuka have to offer enough to want Kiba’s hand instead of Hana’s. He’s the secondborn and the runt, but he isn’t useless. But if they were after him, it only meant that the people pursuing Hana were too serious to allow other suitors into that shit show of a matchmaking contest.

Hinata would have told him if it were her or Neji, or even Hanabi. He doubts Shino. Their parents were all on the same genin team, so there’s little by way of secrets between the three of them. Ino loves gossip too much to keep her mouth shut about the kind that involves her; her little spy ring in the village itself was almost intricate and reliable enough to match Jiraiya’s same network across the elemental nations. Shikamaru would probably end up marrying a clanless kunoichi like his father had before him.

Sakura came from a civilian family, so she’d probably be handling her match herself. And that probably meant she was either aiming for a lower level family or for one of the noble clans and not a mid-tier one like the Aburame or the Inuzuka. Chouji didn’t like men as far as Kiba knew. Lee had that thing with the incumbent Kazekage.

When he exhausts everyone in his year and can’t think of anyone out of it, Kiba shrugs his shoulders and asks. He’s bracing himself for disappointment, but he’s sure his family wouldn’t screw him over on purpose. If it came down to it, he knows his mom would want him to have a love match if at all possible. It was Hana who needed to have healthy heirs regardless of if they had two moms or a mom and two dads or whatever.

“Who is it?” he asks.

Ino grins at him, mouth wrapped around the sstraw of her smoothie. The look on her face is positively shit-eating, and she sucks down her fruit-and-protein-and-honey-kale concoction du jour, her arms folded neatly on the counter. She boxes Shikamaru in even though they're in public, even though the gesture is innocuous enough.

She's positively glowing.

"Shut up," Shikamaru groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Ino drinks more of her smoothie, as if to prove that he's the one that's talking too much, and she's just sitting there being quiet and loving and supportive, like a good friend should be.

Settled on the kitchen table in the Nara estate are tools. Gardening tools. Because Shikamaru has to secure territory in the Nara forests for his fiancé. There are pruning sheers, shovels, buckets, and Shikamaru is up to his elbows in fresh dirt.

There was plenty of space in the forest for several more generations of Nara to claim a little space. The pieces of land parceled out were smaller now, much smaller than they were in the Warring States Era, but they were still big enough that Shikamaru had to get his hands dirty to make his nice.

To his father's standards, to his mother's, and to his betrothed's.

"You," Ino drawls, plucking her straw from her mouth and twirling it in her plastic cup, "are taking this way more seriously than you said you were going to."

Shikamaru can feel the dirt that he's smeared across his nose. He tries to rub at it, and is immediately aware he's only made it worse.

The patch he chose wasn't anything special, not by Nara standards. It wasn't near the especially potent medicinal herbs, or near the flower gardens. It was within hearing distance from the arm of the Naka River that flowed through Nara territory, and a short walk away from a shallow point where you could skip stones from one end to the other.

It was a nice grazing spot for the braver does, the ones that had taken a shine to Shikamaru since he was first allowed to venture into the forest alone when he was ten.

"You planted a -,"

"I planted a tree, Ino, I know, I was there."

She was the one who helped him pick out exactly what he'd wanted in the first place. Where else would the Nara go for a betrothal plant than to the Yamanaka? She'd walked him through how to take care of the tree when it flowered, and what to do if the deer got brave enough to nibble on it even though it was supposed to repel them.

"Kousa," she says, finishing as if he never interrupted. She smiles in that pretty way of hers that means she's about to tease you within an inch of your life, crossing one leg on top of the other. "Not very original. But cute. You think that'll be what you name your firstborn?"

Shikamaru groans as loudly as he can, trying to drown her out. He oughta know better. Nothing can annoy Ino into silence. He and Chouji would know. They'd tried.

"Nara Kousa," she continues, teasing the name out around the straw of her smoothie. "I like it."

She crosses her legs under the table and Shikamaru lays his forehead down on it. It's cool, and his face is still hot from doing yard work all morning.

"Besides, they can always pick a 'Shika' name for themselves if they're named clan head."

Shikamaru tries to kick her under the table. Ino moves her legs, expertly dodging and managing to kick him in the process. Shikamaru groans again, wonders what he did to deserve a best friend like Ino.

He had spent all day in the heat gardening. Marking his territory. Staking a claim and making it nice. His parents weren't allowed to follow him into the forest, but Shikamaru could feel Yoshino's eyes on the back of his neck, browbeating him into taking this seriously.

Not to mention the claims of other Nara men and women that had made proposals. There were several little plots like Shikamaru's, decorated with flowers and plants brought in from outside of the forest, wind chimes, and empty lanterns for decoration. Those knick-knacks were for the more human side of things; the side that wanted to impress, please the eye.

But the fact that Shikamaru had to mark his territory had been weird from the moment he undid his zipper to the moment he pulled it back up. Weird, but not out of place. Not foreign. The Nara may not wear their bond with the deer on their bodies, but that bond ran deep in their blood, and it left Shikamaru little room for discomfort.

Besides. He was going to marry -

His ears turn red. Ino must see it because she gives a haughty laugh like one of those villainess women from dated kunoichi movies.

"You haven't even proposed yet!" she crows.

Shikamaru is well aware that he hasn't proposed yet. His father was doing that for him. Well, he was drafting the contract. His dad had given him a wry grin when he came back from that clan council meeting.

"Technically, he isn't your fiancé."

A technicality, sure, but one Shikamaru was hung up on.

Inuzuka Tsume had apparently accepted Shikaku's proposal of his son's hand with very little fanfare. That much was unlike the woman, and the match was unlike those her clan had made in the past. The Inuzuka under all clan heads had been eager to mix dog bloodlines. A match with a deer clan was unprecedented.

"I think they'll get along," his father had supposedly said to Tsume.

'Get along'. Of course Shikamaru and Kiba got along. They were half the troublemakers of their year when they were in the academy together. They did well on missions. They hung out off duty.

"But you have the biggest crush on him," Ino needles, tapping his shin with her foot.

Shikamaru peeks up at her. He can't kick her off the property. One, because his mother loves Ino and won't let him. Two, because she helped him get the dogwood and all the supplies into the Nara compound in the first place, and it'd be rude to kick her out now. Three, because she used the blender to make a smoothie, and Shikamaru didn't want to clean it himself.

He settles for an insult.

"You're why I don't like women."

That only makes her lift an eyebrow and lean forward.

"The Yamanaka have been providing the Nara and Akimichi sakaki branches since the beginning of time," she says, flicking his forehead like she usually does to Sakura, "You don't need to like women. You but you do need me."

She leans back in her chair when she feels she's suitably chastised him. Shikamaru rubs the red spot on his forehead. She used her ring finger, which was the softest on her hand. It was when she used her middle finger that she meant business.

"So," she says, cocking her head to the side. "When will you go off to do your groomly labors?"

He resists the urge to tell her that 'groomly' isn't even a word. She'll catch it for the deflection it is, and then she'll ream him to hell and back for being nervous about going into the Inuzuka compound to do manual labor for a month.

"I start tomorrow."

Ino's eyebrows lift to her hairline.

"Tomorrow?" she splutters. "It can't be tomorrow!"

Shikamaru shrugs. A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He'll take it.

"When I finish carving a space for us on Nara land, then I go to him and prove that I can maintain it."

Ino flaps her hands, nearly knocking over her smoothie in her rush to stand up.

"C'mon, shit for brains!" she shouts. "You need a pedicure! And your hair needs deep conditioning, and dear god, your under-eye bags - ,"

A manic Ino is better than a smug one. He repeats that to himself as he lets his childhood friend drag him up by the elbow and through the Nara compound. There are about a dozen uncles and aunties perfectly willing to help Ino buff Shikamaru into something presentable for his Inuzuka fiancé.

If his nosy cousins already weren't aware of the fact that Shikamaru was leaving for his groom labors, they certainly were now.

They make Kiba dress up, which isn't the worst thing they've ever done. He was Hana's dress up doll for a good portion of their childhood, so he's pretty sure he can survive this.

He isn't even in his Inuzuka finest, or his wedding furs. He just looks - well, nicer than he usually does. Hana poked her head into his bathroom earlier and told him to put some gel in his hair. Make a good first impression. It sounded like bullshit, because he had known Shikamaru since they were academy brats together. There were no good first impressions he had to make.

Until he's standing just inside the front gates of the Inuzuka compound and he realizes that Shikamaru's parents are there as well. Which would be all well and good if Shikamaru weren't standing between them, holding a buck about two or three times his size on his shoulders like it's nothing.

Kiba's nose catches blood, and Akamaru beside him opens his mouth to taste it on the little breeze. He's sure all the dogs on the compound can smell the fresh kill, and all the humans on the compound are dreaming of venison. And as the Nara approach, Kiba can feel his pupils dilate. Can feel his blood rush up in his veins, the hairs on his arms standing up.

There's a smear of blood on Shikamaru's forehead, either from wiping the sweat off of it when he finished the kill, or smeared as an apology and offering to the life of the buck he killed. There's a hunting knife bouncing at his hip that Kiba can tell is the weapon he used to kill the limp animal on his shoulders. And behind the three Nara, there is a trail of that fresh blood, probably leading all the way back to the compound.

And Shikamaru is shirtless. There is also that.

The writhing shadows of his clan sigil are painted in thick green and black swaths on his chest with brushstroke and fingertip, and Kiba can smell the earth and ink that went into the broad design under the smell of the blood still leaking from the buck, trailing in a red wave down Shikamaru's back.

A man. A half naked man. Brought him a fresh kill. And left a trail of blood back to his home, his den so that Kiba could find him again. Could walk right into that land of plenty and shack up, if he wanted.

It was an invitation. A show of prosperity and prowess. And it makes Kiba's throat dry.

He may be a little lightheaded.

The three Nara walk forward. Kiba settles a hand into Akamaru's white fur to steady himself. His knees feel weak. The smell of fresh blood and ink and the medicinal herbs that made up the sigil on Shikamaru's chest is so very different than what Kiba is used to smelling on the other shinobi. It's nice. Really, really nice.

He probably should've listened to Hana when she tried to warn him.

"Deer are really sensitive to smell," she had said, arms folded across her chest. "They're big on pheromones."

'Big' on pheromones. More like the understatement of the year. Of Kiba's lifetime. Of the millennium.

Shikamaru stops ahead of his parents, who flank him. He stops, gets down on one knee in front of Tsume and carefully removes the deer from his shoulders, muscles hardly straining with the effort.

He lays the carcass at her feet, then lifts his head and bares his neck to her. It makes Kiba's stomach drop, this easy show of deference to his mother. Shikamaru wasn't marrying into the Inuzuka, Kiba was the one marrying out of it. But here Shikamaru is, doing that.

Tsume reaches out and rubs the flat of her palm against the side of Shikamaru's neck. It makes something in Kiba rear up on its hind legs, ready to spit. That kill is his. That man is his. Clan head or not, his mother shouldn't be marking him.

He only realizes his grip on Akamaru's gone too tight when his partner turns his head and nips at his wrist. Kiba bites down on his yelp and snatches his hand away from Akamaru's scruff.

"Sorry, buddy," he says.

Akamaru whuffs lightly at him, then turns and looks back to where Tsume marks Kiba's fiancé.

Fiancé. God, that was weird. Kiba has a fiancé.

Hana snickers at him from behind her hand, but she doesn't reach out to touch Shikamaru. Kiba counts it as a blessing. He'd probably snap at her if she did.

"Pulling out all the stops for your first introduction, aren't you, Shikamaru-kun?" Tsume asks.

Kuromaru, the grumpy old man, sniffs at the other side of Shikamaru's throat, and Kiba has to work to stifle the snarl that wants to fight its way out of him. He loves Kuromaru, he really does, but he likes that old dog's teeth that close to Shikamaru's fragile skin as much as he likes his own mother's hand there.

Shikamaru looks up at Tsume, the long line of his pale throat exposed to her tenderness or her wrath. Kiba wants to barrel roll into him and cover him bodily, keep all of his soft parts away from tooth and claw and harm.

But Shikamaru only smiles, dark brown eyes flicking from Tsume to Kiba. And for the moment that their eyes meet, Kiba can feel the air get sucked out of him.

Throat still bared, blood on his forehead, sweat beading between his collarbones from the summer heat. Kiba wants to bite him.

"I'd like to impress you," Shikamaru says, turning his gaze back to Tsume, "if you'll allow it, haha-ue."

There's a little quirk to his mouth, more attitude than blind deference, and Kiba wonders how Shikamaru knows how to play the Inuzuka.

The overly polite form of address makes Tsume bark out a laugh. She reaches out with both her hands and drags Shikamaru to his feet by his shoulders. She gives him a solid pat on the shoulder, and Shikamaru doesn't even wobble under the weight of her blow.

"We're gonna have fun this month, kid," Tsume says. "But I'm not the one you need to impress."

She gives her eyebrows a suggestive wiggle, but Kiba can't really notice it around the little branches he now sees in Shikamaru's ponytail. Tiny little twigs. Almost like antlers.

Wow. Wow, he's going to die at twenty.

Shikamaru's positioned himself so firmly on the line between predator and prey that it leaves Kiba's head swimming. It's a very good confusion. And it is one that Kiba will have to (get to, get to, get to) deal with for a month.

"And," his mother adds, smirking as she does, "I'm not sure it'll be that hard."

When he carves up the buck he hunted, it's about as gory as he expected it to be, and he regrets the waste of blood that he had to leave to make a trail from the Inuzuka to the Nara compounds. He does it before he changes out of his hunting clothes, while his clan's sigil is still stark on his chest.

The Inuzuka were only about thirty strong, and Shikamaru was careful with his portioning, and managed to feed them all with it. The Nara deer were much bigger than average, had been bred that way. And the buck Shikamaru took down for his 'groomly duties' had been big as hell.

He feels eyes on him as he does it, thirty pairs of eyes to be exact. But he keeps his own eyes downcast. He tends his cookfire, starts it with wood gathered from the Inuzuka compound and his own persistence. Cooking the buck over an Inuzuka fed flame was a good way to show the combining of their families, each nurturing the other though their eventual union.

His eventual union. With Kiba.

While most of the Inuzuka are reasonably wary of him at first, the children (who are much easier to please) ram into his legs demanding seconds. They rub their little cheeks on his knees and so do their ninken partners. They climb him like a jungle gym, drag him down to their level so they can wipe their little hands on his cheek or on his neck, or press their cheeks to his.

Maybe they mark him as 'friend' as 'clan' as 'pack' too soon. They're children, after all, and they may not be too sure of what they're doing. The adults are more wary, but they trust the instincts of the little ones. People still so close to wildness without being lost to it are good judges of character.

"At least," Hana says, jostling his arm with her elbow. "That's what they say."

Hana and the other adults are more conservative with their scent marking, even though it took Shikamaru about twenty minutes to get the seal of approval from every Inuzuka child on the compound. The adults prefer to wait for him to settle into his month of labor before they give him their approval.

He gets it from Hana in the clinic. She's eager to pick his brains, to figure out all he knows about the Nara medicinal sciences. Hana favored homeopathic medicine even over chakra, and she was a dedicated student. She wanted information, and she soaked up all Shikamaru had to offer in the short time he spent among the Inuzuka.

One day after he helps her make her first fever burning poultice, she drags him in for a hug that ends with her rubbing her cheek firmly against his. The Haimaru brothers quirk up their ears as soon as she does it, and by the time Hana lets him go, Shikamaru is drowning under the weight of three full grown wolf dogs and the sound of Hana's deep belly laugh.

He gets it from a couple of uncles while he helps maintain the kennels. From aunties when he thatches a roof or two. Does more housework than he really expected himself to do. On more than one occasion, he gets it from Tsume when he makes meals for her, Hana, and Kiba, especially when he makes sure he's the last one to start eating, even after Kiba's begun. There's a pecking order, and he knows his place on it.

The little ones are as free with their affection as their seniors are once they notice that they aren't the only ones that like Shikamaru. They take to ambushing him when he's napping between the jobs the uncles and aunties give him. They'll dive bomb his stomach, tug on his hair. The Inuzuka kids rough house way more than the Nara kids do, and they're always prone to raucous laughter when he attaches their shadows to stop them before they can knock his guts out of place for the umpteenth time.

Kiba doesn't touch him. But he watches.

Shikamaru stays a month. Does yard work. Brushes dog fur. Holds open the mouths of two of Kakashi's ninken (who take more after their summoner than they lead on) while Hana shoves a fistful of Nara-Inuzuka collaboration engineered medicine down their throats. He's pretty sure he gains a few more toned muscles in his back from having to hold up anywhere from two to nine children at a time.

He sleeps in the main house, in a room away from Tsume, and Hana, and Kiba. The dogs come to visit him. To Shikamaru, it seems like the dogs like his company better than the people do. He isn't always a fan of their play fighting, but whenever he's asleep, Kuromaru and the Haimaru brothers sniff him out like he's a beacon of peace and quiet. Which, to be fair, he probably is.

Hana lets him in the room when Kuromaru's mate Nōtō starts her labor pains, and he's there when Hana ties off the umbilical cords of the pups after Nōtō licks the membrane off all six of them. While Nōtō is preoccupied with cleaning her puppies, Hana cuts their cords expertly and leaves Shikamaru with the clean up.

He tries not to touch the puppies if he can help it, not wanting to mark them while their mother is still so sensitive. He does his best until Hana puts a towel and a puppy in his hands, and tells him to rub her down.

Shikamaru stares down at the pup. Not a runt, but not the largest one either. A pretty little one, sweet. He's careful when he uses the towel on her face to clean her up, and her little yips begin and melt into the noise the rest of her siblings make.

He feels a pair of inhuman eyes on him and he looks up to see Nōtō staring at him. She's intelligent the way all Inuzuka ninken are intelligent, with sharp eyes and sharper teeth. It's no wonder she's Kuromaru's mate. She looks about a size and a half larger than him, and roughly as mean.

With slow, careful hands, he places the pup down at her side where the others are jostling for her milk. Nōtō sniffs at his hand as he takes it back, and Hana plops another puppy in his lap before he can get worried about their mother ripping his hand off.

The first puppy seeks him out a lot after that. Even at two weeks, ninken bred dogs are smart, capable trackers. The puppy is awkward on her feet, wobbly and chubby and sweet looking. She yowls loud as anything when she legs lost in the kennel and can't find him, and Shikamaru thinks it's better to scoop her up and scratch her behind the ears than to let her just scream herself hoarse.

He names her Taikō in his head, and when Hana catches him calling her that, she laughs. 'Light pink' after her mother's 'deep pink', though neither of them are anywhere even close to the color. Nobody seems surprised that she follows him around. Even Kuromaru and Nōtō don't seem willing to stop her.

"Her chakra pathways are too small," Hana explains during a check up of Taikō and her five siblings. "It happens. She won't be an active duty ninken, but she's not really a pet either. She'll stay on the compound and she'll help her siblings and the other dogs train."

Or she'll bother Shikamaru until the cows come home. She seems pretty keen on that, judging by the way she's always gnawing on his ankles when he's still for more than a minute at a time.

It's kind of like having a tiny useless assistant. Shikamaru likes it more than he lets on. He's gonna be sad to have to leave her behind when he does go. But now, he just likes her company. She's puppy eager, that's for sure, but she naps on his belly and the Inuzuka kids are much less likely to throw themselves on him when Taikō is sleeping there, too.

The month goes by. He's touched by every ninken, dog, and person on the Inuzuka compound except for Kiba and Akamaru. He tries not to take it as an affront. He knows he's doing the right things. He's proved himself a capable hunter, provider, and even healer several times over. He can take care of Kiba, and whatever children they have. He knows he's doing everything right.

And if Kiba wants to do things the Nara way, he could take another husband, or another wife if Shikamaru didn't do is job well enough. The thought doesn't even think to sting. Shikamaru had several aunties with more than one husband; polyandry doesn't make him puff up. But Kiba... He doubts Kiba would feel the same way.

The Inuzuka were an all or nothing kind of people.

Shikamaru doesn't press. He knows better than to corner any animal into any situation. He does his labors, and he waits. And on the evening of the thirty-first day, when he's packed up all of his things, and Taikō, the Haimaru brothers, and Kuromaru are all asleep on his bedroll with him, he doesn't bat an eye open when another nose sticks itself into his doorway.

He keeps his breathing steady when Akamaru settles his chin on Shikamaru's shoulder. And once Akamaru is asleep, he reaches up a hand, and gives the dog a little scratch behind the ears.

He sleeps swaddled in dog fur.

He repeats the words over and over again to himself in his head. He has to make sure he won't forget them. The Inuzuka weren't big on speeches. They trusted actions more than words, but the Nara were intellectuals. Kiba had to say something good.

He was getting married today. And if he fucked this up, he was pretty sure he was going to run back to the Inuzuka compound and hide in his room until he was in his sixties.

Shikamaru had played the game well. Had played it right. Kiba hadn't spoken to him, so Shikamaru hadn't sought him out. Instead, he fixed leaksand delivered pups. And played with the kids and helped the aunties with the laundry and the uncles with the cooking.

He had slaughtered an entire buck on day one. Kiba hadn't been sure that he'd be able to breathe past his nosebleed. Then Taikō started following Shikamaru around and Kiba knew he was gone.

It takes him so little time to tell his mother he'll accept Shikamaru's hand, it's kind of embarrassing.

Tsume looked at her son like he was an idiot, and drummed her fingers on her arm.

"I already accepted his proposal for you," she said, lifting an eyebrow. "How do you think an arranged marriage works?"

His silence was all his mom really needs. He turned beet red when she started laughing, tried not to choke when she slammed her hand down on his back in congratulations.

"That's my boy!" she bellowed, giving him a cheerful shake. "Enthusiasm! That's good for every marriage!"

She dragged him in for a hug with her elbow around his throat and Kiba followed, allowing her knuckles to dig into the top of his skull because it kept her from seeing how red he'd gone in the face.

And now he's here. After walking the old blood path Shikamaru had made with that buck all the way to the Nara compound, Akamaru at his side, wearing a formal kimono and the pelts his father had worn when he was marrying his mother. He feels kind of lightheaded even though it's autumn already, and the cool air does its best to steady him.

Akamaru buoys him, leaning against his side to keep him on his feet. Kiba is pretty sure he's going to die. The Inuzuka are moving as a pack, more than half of them accompanying Kiba on his procession. It's a little excessive in his opinion, the Inuzuka showing out in their furs, their faces painted with more red paint to accompany their solitary tattoos to celebrate the occasion. It serves to make the civilians more skittish, but the shinobi that have a closer proximity to the clans give them a respectful berth.

Kiba leads the procession. His mother is at his left, his sister to his right, and Akamaru right at his side. The Haimaru brothers follow Hana, and Kurmomaru stays in step with their mother, Taikō laying on her father's head. He follows the smell of old blood, picks it out underneath the newer smells of other people using the footpath. The extra paint on his chin makes his markings longer, and there is a slim triangle on his forehead that just touches the bridge of his nose.

The Inuzuka dress in white to further highlight the red they wear on their faces, only flashes of other colors in the pelts they wear on their sleeves and the grey hakama they wear. The raccoon dog pelt on Kiba's shoulders weighs heavy, but the dog pelt beneath him is a little more mooring.

He doesn't really start to panic until he gets to the Nara compound. Shikamaru's family is there to welcome him, invites all twenty of the present Inuzuka across the threshold.

Shikamaru is nowhere to be seen. Kiba opens his mouth discreetly, tries to taste the air to find his mate (tries to keep his brain from absolutely just stalling at that realization right there), but Yoshino's knowing smile keeps him from asking about it.

"Kiba-kun," Yoshino says, dressed resplendently in green and gold. "Welcome."

She sweeps forward, and Shikaku keeps step with her. There are little branches in their hair, small, almost twigs, hidden among more ornamental combs. Kiba sees them.

Yoshino lets her hands rest lightly on Kiba's shoulders and gives his nose a gentle buss with her own. The touch is gentle, and Kiba can smell her softness and the tightly corded power that rests in her hands. Clanless kunoichi or not, Nara Yoshino wasn't the housewife she presented herself as. She smelled like honing oil and night shadow. Like power.

It's at home, mingled in the tenderness of her touch, and Kiba relaxes minutely under her hand. He had been worried that he wouldn't fit in with the Nara. That despite their standing as a shinobi clan, they'd be prey, skittish and keyed up in the face of a dog like him.

He couldn't have been more wrong. The same way Shikamaru walked that thin line, his mother dances, and his father glides. He smiles at his incumbent mother-in-law, and feels as though he's going to fit in just fine.

Shikaku steps in cleanly as Yoshino steps to the side, and busses his nose against Kiba as well. Shikamaru's father is all oak trees and hiddenness, and as soon as he's in Kiba's space, he's giving him a firm squeeze on the shoulder.

"Yoshino will show you the way," he says.

Kiba nods. Akamaru flicks his ears as Yoshino tenderly takes Kiba's arm and leads him for the first time, away from the bulk of his pack. Shikaku stays with Tsume, and it's an odd sort of trade. Clan head for second-born son. It's a show of trust if Kiba's ever seen one.

He doesn't look back.

Yoshino doesn't lead him into the main house. She bypasses it entirely, walks forward still until she reaches a visibly new dwelling. It's a nice house, one level, which is all Kiba can imagine himself or Shikamaru needing for now. It's settled on a nice piece of land, with lush green grass all around it, and two small saplings recently planted in the upturned earth by the porch.

Yoshino pats Kiba's arm and leads him up the front steps.

"This will be yours," she explains as she slides off her sandals once they're inside. "An older pair lived in this one until they moved in with their son and his husband. I hope that's alright."

It's more than alright. The scents of the older couple are sunk deep into the bones of the house, and Kiba likes it. This place may not be his, not yet at least, but it was lived in. Comfortable. There were creaky floorboards, little places where children had practiced throwing things they shouldn't have. Dents, cracks.

It was clear that attempts had been made to clear out the specific smell of the other couple, and for the most part, they'd worked. All Kiba could smell was the general Nara scent of moving shadow and wet clay. And Shikamaru.

Akamaru steps forward after politely shaking his paws at the door, and trots into the house. The furniture inside is mostly new, but some things are hand-me-downs. There's a stack of quilts sitting near the kotatsu that look old enough to tell Tsume what to do.

"It's perfect, haha-ue," he says, words careful even though his smile.

Yoshino laughs lightly at him and gives Kiba's arm another squeeze.

"That's not necessary," she says, waving a hand. "Though it's nice to get a little respect around here between Shikamaru and his bum father."

And that is definitely the kind of talk Kiba is used to.

"You just call me 'mom'," Yoshino insists, "or 'kaa-san' if I'm upset with you. 'Haha-ue' is for weddings and funerals, or when you're kissing ass."

Kiba chuckles, then reaches out. He busses his nose against her cheek, and his boldness is rewarded. Yoshino leans in, a doe with her new dog-toothed fawn.

"Haha-ue it is then," he replies.

Yoshino gives him a little pinch, still smiling.

"I already like you better than my boy," she says. "But now I've got to go make sure Shikaku isn't ruining my wedding."

She untangles herself from him, and Akamaru trots back over. He rubs his head against her hip and she drops a hand to scratch underneath his chin. His tail wags and his tongue lolls out of his mouth.

"Your wedding?" Kiba asks.

Yoshino lifts an eyebrow at him.

"You know what they say about the clan head," she drawls. "The clan neck is the one who really runs the operation."

It startles a laugh out of Kiba, one that Yoshino only smirks through. It's the exact kind of thing he really should expect a Nara woman to say, especially one that managed to give birth to and raise Shikamaru.

"Stay here," Yoshino instructs, carefully sliding her sandals back on. "We'll be back for you when the priestess is ready."

Kiba nods, and with that, Yoshino is gone. He scuffs his foot against the polished wood floors, and ambles through his new house. In the living room, there are bookshelves laden with knick-knacks and pictures in frames. One of them is of Team Ten in their genin days. Another is just of Shikamaru and Chouji napping, a third with Ino braiding Shikamaru's hair while he sleeps.

There's a window near the bookshelf, and he steps into its light so he can read some of the titles better. A fair amount of theory and philosophy, military strategy and the like, but they're dwarfed, utterly dwarfed by dime thriller novels, the kind Kurenai-sensei makes them read when they're doing research for a genjutsu.

He runs his thumb over the spines of a few familiar ones. It's funny. He never would've pegged Shikamaru as the type to -

Akamaru's warning snarl is all he gets before he's stuck like that, a finger on a book, standing in the light. He should've known better. Should've known better than to make a shadow where there were Nara.

He grinds his teeth, tries to figure out who in Shikamaru's family would want to hurt him and why, wonders what would happen if Akamaru tackled his assailant, when he sees him through the window.

Shikamaru is there, mimicking his position, hand outstretched. He slowly brings his hand back to his side and Kiba copies him. Shikamaru walks forward and Kiba does. He settles Kiba's hand against the latch, then has Kiba press open the windows.

The light is soft on his face. Warm. Kiba narrows his eyes at his fiancé. Shikamaru makes the both of them rub the backs of their necks.

"This is the really, really lame part," he says. "Fair warning."

Kiba bares his teeth.

"Can I have my arm back?"

Shikamaru sighs, breaks the jutsu.

"You can have your whole body back," he says. "I just have to get your attention. You have to come to me. Of your own free will."

Kiba narrows his eyes.

"I've already come."

Shikamaru shakes his head.

"You've come to the compound. You came to the house I prepared for us. But it's different," he explains. "You need to come to me."

A failsafe, in all likelihood, against unhappy unions. A last chance to turn tail and run. A bride or groom could make up any story they wanted about the Nara that used their shadow to get their attention, and the Nara would release them from the contract.

It was so wildly different than what Kiba had expected.

He puts his hand down on the windowsill, and flings himself bodily out of his new house.

Akamaru barks up a storm, tries to push himself out of the window himself. Kiba waves a hand at him, and he hears his partner calm down while he approaches Shikamaru.

"How close do I have to come?" he asks, toe to toe with his fiancé.

Shikamaru's cheeks go a little pink. He scratches his jawline, and jerks his head back.

"Further."

With that, he's running. And if Kiba knows how to do anything, it's chase.

It sets him on fire, the way Shikamaru flickers just out of sight, a little flash step away to put some space between them, then bolts. He watches him push off the ground like it's in slow motion, watches him take the first step, lift his arms to help him, watches him go.

Kiba's running before he can think about it.

His blood thunders in his ears, all thoughts of nerves and cold feet flying out of the window. Shikamaru leads him on a merry chase through his home turf, ducking and leaping over and under low-high branches, downright barrel rolling where he will, damn near ruining his own wedding kimono.

He fakes Kiba out against a tree, and Kiba's claws leave grooves in the wood where he launches himself off of it. Was it does that ran away from bucks before mating? Trying to tire them out to see if they were worth the rut? Or was it does that led bucks away from prying eyes, into privacy?

Kiba doesn't remember. He hadn't done a good enough amount of reading before all of this happened, even though Hana had given him books. He's always preferred to learn by doing.

The forest is awash with little light and more sound. The deeper they go, the quieter it gets, until Kiba can only hear the other deer in the forest, and Shikamaru running ahead of him. There's a little sound, a water sound like a river far from its source, and Kiba's breath in his chest. He's burning with his pelts on his shoulders, with the tightness of his hakama and the white haori underneath it.

Shikamaru turns over his shoulder and winks at him, and Kiba's about two minutes away from losing it.

The further they get into the forest, the stranger the world around him gets. These are trees the Shodaime didn't grow, ones that sunlight has never seen, that no one outside of the Nara can tend to. It all smells wetter, thicker, darker, cloying as the shadow that the Nara employ in their ninjutsu.

And then he smells oak and honing oil and he's distracted. Confused about why he smells his father and mother-in-law even though he's pretty sure he's several kilometers away from them.

Then, the couple whose house he moved into, and other uncles and aunties, and Kiba has to remind himself how his mother taught him to breathe through the distractions. He shakes his head, focuses, breathes deep into his belly. Then he keeps up the chase.

Shikamaru must step over a border of some kind, because he takes a step and then falters. It's all the opening that Kiba needs. He throws himself into Shikamaru, takes him down from behind, rolls them until he's straddling his fiancé, the both of them breathing heavy.

Then, Kiba sneezes. In his fiancé's face.

"Oh my god."

Shikamaru wipes the spray Kiba has managed to get on his cheek with the back of his hand, but makes no move to push Kiba off.

"I'm so - ,"

"Don't worry about it," Shikamaru says, managing to shrug even though Kiba has him pinned.

Kiba leans back, wants part way to pull himself off, but finds he doesn't really want to. Can't quite make himself. This is the most he's touched Shikamaru in their brief courting period. Closest he's come to scent marking him.

It occurs to Kiba in that moment, that Shikamaru's parents have marked him. And in front of the Inuzuka no less. And he marked Yoshino back. He marked Shikamaru's mom before he marked Shikamaru.

He's gonna die.

"I didn't peg you for allergic," Shikamaru continues. "Though it may be because this place might be a lot for a sensitive nose."

Kiba wrinkles his brows and opens his mouth to ask what in the world Shikamaru is talking about when the stink of the plot around him gets caught in his throat.

This is Shikamaru's territory. He had only barely noticed it, was too busy tackling Shikamaru over the unseen border and into Shikamaru's own slot of land. Shikamaru led him here, let Kiba be the one to drag them both over the invisible line into the place that Shikamaru had carved out for himself.

And above them, there's a dogwood tree.

Above them, being relative. It's only a sapling, but Kiba recognizes the smell, the slim branches of the young tree.

"Dogwood?" he asks, trying to keep at least some bravado over the way he's suddenly feeling choked up. God, what the hell. "That's not very original."

Shikamaru shrugs again. Kiba tries not to dig his claws into his fiancé's shoulders.

"Ino said the same thing," Shikamaru replies. "But originality isn't the point."

Shikamaru's hands rise, settle on Kiba's hips. He doesn't try to flip them. Instead, he lifts his chin, bares the skin of his throat just a little bit more, and there's a snarl in Kiba's throat that comes out before he can stop it.

"They mean durability," he continues. "Reliability. Resilience and strength."

"Sturdy foundation for a marriage," Kiba grits out, trying to focus anywhere but the way Shikamaru's thumbs rub slow circles against his hipbones.

"That's what I thought," Shikamaru says, voice low and even. "Know what else they mean?"

"What?"

"You give someone a kousa flower when you aren't sure if they like you or not."

Kiba's eyes clear in a heartbeat. Shikamaru is staring up at him, throat still bared, his brown eyes cool and even as the ground beneath him.

"You don't think I - ?"

Shikamaru shrugs, gives Kiba's hips a squeeze.

"Not while I was doing my work on the compound," he explains. "I guessed when you sent Akamaru. I was pretty sure. But - ,"

But the nature of the ritual the Nara employed. The chase, and the way out before it ever happened. It hadn't really taken that long for their parents to settle on the match. And a month wasn't very long to perform wedding labors, was it?

But Kiba never would have guessed that Shikamaru had ever been unsure.

"That's why you - ,"

Planted the tree. Told him he needed to come further than obligation dictated. Would it have been enough for anyone else, if Kiba had just stood toe to toe with Shikamaru back in the Nara compound? Did he really need Kiba to chase him all the way into the forest, to drag them both into Shikamaru's territory?

Or was that Shikamaru's way of being sure?

"I choose you."

The flowery words he had prepared for the wedding ceremony leave his head as soon as he thinks to conjure them. Kiba does what he does best; he follows his instinct.

He draws the flat of his palm over Shikamaru's bare throat, draws a clawed thumb down the column just to see Shikamaru's adam's apple jump. Shikamaru looks up at him, still as a caught animal.

"I choose you," Kiba repeats, and he leans down, busses his nose against Shikamaru's, scents him the Nara way.

"I choose you," he says, dipping his hand around Shikamaru's throat and giving it a squeeze, dipping his head down forward to breathe him in.

Shikamaru shudders, presses up on his elbows and Kiba allows it, allows it because it presses the two of them closer together. Kiba noses at where Shikamaru's heartbeat thrums in his throat, wants to put a claiming bite over the vein.

"Great," Shikamaru breathes. "Wanna get married?"

Kiba chuckles and rears back, presses his forehead against Shikamaru's. He smears the red triangle on his forehead against his fiancé's even as Shikamaru reaches up, tugging the furs off of Kiba's shoulders and shoving his haori down, baring his arms and chest to the cold air of the deep forest.

The rut comes after the chase, and Kiba bites Shikamaru's throat, stakes the claim he's been craving, and Shikamaru arches underneath him, digs his fingers into his side as the bite draws a bead of blood.

"Let's get hitched," he rumbles into his husband's throat.

Shikamaru shudders out a laugh. And when he hitches his hips up and rolls them, buries his face at the front of Kiba's throat and bites down just like an Inuzuka should, Kiba's vision whites out.

They don't leave the forest 'til nightfall.

#narutogiftexchange #naruto #ao3 #fic #shikakiba #inuzuka kiba #nara shikamaru

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Text

So I binged Boku no Hero Academia (SPOILERS BELOW)

So I binge watched and binge read this entire series up to date in about 4 days straight. And let me tell you; this is some good shit.

It’s a very refreshing and welcome change of pace to a lot of other big shounen.

To start off, the protagonist, Izuku, starts off as a average guy who wants to become a hero- typical underdog plot, it’s fine. You know what I really enjoy about him? Everything.

I like that right off the bat, he has to train like hell to even start to be able to use his powers. I like how his powers have logical limits. I like how he gets around his quirk’s double edged sword in the beginning with strategy. This is the only shounen lead I’ve seen use strategy constantly and doesn’t have a craving for fighting in some form. I like his design because he doesn’t just have black dots for eyes. I like that he isn’t crazy ripped. I like that he isn’t afraid to cry. I like that he’s both striving for the top and improving himself in just about every way, not just in power.

The art in this series is great. Personally, I find it to be my aesthetic. I like how the women don’t have huge knockers, though this series certainly isn’t the first to not have it.

I like how the quirks and designs are unique for each character (except one, but that’s an acceptable gag). Because of their personalities and appearances, I like all of the 1-A class.

Except Bakugo.

Holy shit, he was such a cunt. His irrational anger at pretty much everything and him pulling a Leeroy Jenkins was more than annoying. It really bothers me how he never, ever got payback for him bullying Deku for years. Every time he opened his mouth, I just felt so irritated because he would never chill out for even a second, it seemed like. Eventually, his dickishness did tone down a little and I could acknowledge him being smart. I’ll probably never outright like him, but I can tolerate him a lot better now. Bless Kirishima for giving this boy some much needed friendship.

For story, I’ll just go by the arc.

Entrance Exam Arc - Battle Trial Arc

Kind of slow paced. The first time I watched the series, I didn’t get past this because things were just so slow.

Anyway, just exposition, character introductions and reasons to hate Bakugo.

Unforeseen Simulation Joint Arc

Very dramatic. I like the fights in this arc. Tomura genuinely creeped me out after I got past his weird design. And his quirk...ouch. Poor Aizawa.

Sports Festival Arc

VERY good fights and even more characters. It was during this arc that I finally acknowledged Bakugo’s intelligence and started tolerating him.

I respected Uraraka’s fight with him. It reminded me a lot of Sakura’s fight when she cut her hair. Both girls were seriously outclassed, but tried their damndest try to win through cleverness and strategy. Both still lost, though. I appreciated Urararaka’s endurance, attitude and strategy. I’m sure that it would’ve worked against someone else. Good try.

Ok, Deku vs Shinso is the only instance of an asspull win thus far. What happened to make Deku break out of the brainwashing just didn’t make sense. I hoped that the author would explain it down the line with All for One, but nope.

Todoroki’s subplot was interesting. First and foremost, his dad is a dick when it comes to being a father. Experimenting with your own kids to try and project your dream onto them? Stop. Just stop. If you can’t beat All Might with your own strength, then you’ve lost, it’s over. Also, don’t tell me that Todoroki isn’t almost an anime Zuko. Because he is.

I liked Deku giving him some spur of the moment therapy and it was nice to see Todoroki surpass his trauma, if even for a short bit. The art and animation for their fight was stunning.

Bakugo vs Todoroki was certainly epic. I’m pretty sure that Todoroki could’ve won if he’d used both sides. But I understand him stopping at the last second. A motivational speech from Deku isn’t going to magically erase a lifetime of trauma, I’m afraid.

Sidenote: I really like Hatsume. She reminds me of Iruma from Danganronpa V3 but less bitchy.

Field Training Arc

Gran Torino is neat, but cliche. The badass grandpa mentor? He’s this exact trope.

Stain and Tomura’s interaction was...okay? I guess? It was an interesting conflict in ideals. It also made me realize how much of a manchild Tomura is.

Wasn’t expecting Iida to have a revenge arc going on. It gave character depth I just wasn’t expecting. Sad that he got stomped immediately. Didn’t expect Todoroki and Iida’s bond at all, either. It’s nice that he’s reaching out, I suppose.

Stain’s quirk was oddly specific. Deku being un-paralyzed first because of his blood type made me want to call bullshit. But I just..can’t. We knew Deku’s blood type from his profile. We knew that Stain’s ability works with blood. It’s just crazy specific. Anyway, Stain’s death was disturbing.

End of Term Test Arc

On some level, I knew that Deku and Bakugo would get paired up. Them being able to compromise on fighting and running was a surprise given how stubborn Bakugo is ;especially with Deku. It was nice that Deku went back for Bakugo when he literally got stomped. It’s amazing how he doesn’t hold a grudge against him.

Wasn’t expecting Yaoyorozu to have a subplot about her lack of confidence, though I had noticed it earlier. Her and Todoroki’s teamwork was neat. I didn’t see him to be the type to give a motivational speech.

School Trip Arc

Oh boy. When shit hit the fan in the woods, I could feel how scary that would’ve been. Here you are, in the middle of the night, in the woods, probably alone or with 1 other person, surrounded by a CLOUD OF POISON, all you can hear is explosions/screaming/silence and you know that you’re a sitting duck because you don’t know where anyone else is or how strong he enemies are.

Deku’s fight against the guy that killed Kouta’s parents was a nice show of strength. Fukami’s raging dark shadow was a nice way to get rid of a villain. Overall, I liked it. Just 2 things: 1) Bakugo saying “Don’t come, Deku” was ominous. Nice. 2) I feel like Dabi may know Todoroki somehow. Not like “heard of”, but know him, even if Todoroki doesn’t know him.

Hideout Raid Arc

Let me tell you; this arc was beautiful. Bless Kirishima and his friendship with Bakugo. Yes please. And the Pro Heroes charging in on the League of Villains was hype as fuck. Everything about that just made me hype in a way that I hadn’t been in months.

The play on words with All for One blew my mind. “All for One” as in “all abilities for one person” = Stealing quirks so that belong to one person only.

All Might vs All of One was...beautiful. His determination, the visuals of him cradling the last of his power just for this fight, everyone finding out his secret, everyone cheering him on anyway...Almost got a little emotional there.

Deku’s mom was being logical in those last chapters. I’d be wary if my son’s school kept constantly being hunted down by just about everyone and he kept getting injured every time. But through the power of Kouta’s sweet letter and All Might begging (this was also nice), she caves.

Hero License Exam Arc

Man, everyone in this is just interesting. Not much to say except the Shapeshifter using Uraraka’s appearance was smart, but not smart enough.

The whole Rescue Maneuvers thing was very necessary. It’s cool if you’re strong, but if you don’t know how to actually save anyone, you’re not even a hero at that point. Case and Point- Bakugo. Sure he could see who should be prioritized, but I don’t think anyone would be comforted by the way he handles things. Also, it’s hilarious that there’s actually a job of being a Professional Victim.

Internship Arc

Of course Bakugo wants a fight. Of course. A least he’s not doing it out of irrational anger this time.

The big 3 are kind of hilarious. It’s Kaede, Sasuke and Vault Boy. Jokes aside, Nejire is the definition of Innocently Insensitive and Tamaki is kind of adorable.

Nighteye is perfect. I love his dead serious attitude and love of humor. His process of hiring Deku was neat. It’s funny how they’re both huge nerds when it comes to All Might. Look at all that merch!

Eri is cute and I can already see the fandom calling her “an innocent, sweet cinnamon roll to be protected.” Overhaul is intimidating and he reminds me of Law from One Piece. With his ability he could literally annihilate you. Damn.

Kirishima and Fat Gum’s alliance (even though Kirishima got stomped immediately) was sweet. More than that, I just like the fight itself and Rappa’s attitude. And Toga is joining the fray, well, this is going to be messy.

AND THAT’S ALL CHAPTER TILL NOW!

Whew, that was a lot.

That said, I really do like this series. It’s my new weekly read.

#boku no hero academia #bnha

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recentanimenews · 4 years

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Keep Yourself Energized With Some Dope Naruto Fights

What helps you wake up in the morning and keeps you going throughout the day? Coffee? Maybe some music? Excitement about the contents of your schedule? Eh, that sounds fine, I guess. But have you ever considered starting your day off with awesome Naruto fights? Doctors that I definitely spoke to all agreed that the healthiest way to get yourself going and keep yourself feeling energetic is to watch clips of Naruto, Sasuke and the rest just going to absolute war with each other.

So, because the DFTCODNB (Doctors For The Compilation Of Dope Ninja Battles) said so, I've assembled some fights from the Naruto franchise here for you to watch and enjoy. I hope they wake you up and lead to a more productive day of rewatching Naruto, probably.

Sasuke vs Orochimaru

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One of the best things about early Naruto fights was the feeling of "Oh, man. You are totally out of your league here, bro. Good luck." Everyone was kind of punching above their weight class, starting back when Naruto was tasked with stealing the bells from Kakashi and, ummm, had a bit of trouble. Goku spent the early chapters of Dragon Ball just kicking the crap out of anything that breathed near him, and early One Piece is marked by big guys making fun of Luffy, only to have their jaws rearranged by his fists. But in Naruto, the stakes were odd and deadly - a bunch of well-trained experts who were totally down to pummel sixth graders.

But to watch Sasuke hold his own in a fight against the creepy-and-getting-creepier-by-the-minute Orochimaru was awesome. Obviously, some of Sasuke's actions later on in the franchise are...questionable, but one thing you could count on from him were pretty cool action scenes. This Naruto episode should've been nominated for Best Picture? What won that year? Crash? Umm, does anyone in Crash use Dragon-Flame Jutsu like a Godzilla? Get it together, Hollywood. Watch the rest of the fight here.

Rock Lee vs Gaara

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When we talk about THE fights in shonen battle series, Rock Lee vs Gaara usually comes to mind. But it isn't just about everyone losing their minds when Lee drops the weights (though that is a great moment.) It's about Rock Lee's never-give-up attitude and hard-hitting Taijutsu clashing with Gaara's smarmy sand powers. It's about the underdog energy of the fight which is different from most of the Chunin exam clashes so far. It's about Rock Lee kind of representing all of us, someone who isn't gifted in the same way that many other ninja are, and so he has to work twice as hard to keep up.

Naruto is the main character of the show and he has a lot of relatable traits, but Rock Lee, at least in the beginning, is our proxy. We see the ninja world through his eyes and when we watch him confuse Gaara with his speed and tactics, we feel the same thrill as him. Because we know that WE have to work that hard to accomplish our goals. Watch the rest of the fight here.

Kakashi vs Obito

youtube

Kakashi is one of Naruto's best characters - a silent mentor that loves his romance novels and is the living embodiment of the "*teleports behind you* nothing personnel, kid" meme. Seriously, go watch Naruto again and count how many times a bad guy is like "Ha! I'm unstoppable. Oh god, Kakashi is here." And it never gets old! I could watch Kakashi deliver surprise beatdowns forever. Six seconds ago, he was blushing about his reading material and now he's the coolest character in all of fiction.

He's taken to the next level with Shippuden, in which we get a crash course in his backstory and his relationship with antagonist Obito. And their fight is one of the best in the franchise, not just because it's very, very well-animated, but because there's no dialogue and just flashbacks (which are also of them fighting) and sad music. I would put " Loves to watch former friends fight to tragic orchestral pieces" on my Tinder profile. Watch the rest of the fight here.

Naruto & Sasuke vs Momoshiki

youtube

This might be the most shared clip of Boruto ever and there's a good reason for that. As soon as Boruto yells "Dad!" which is pop culture shorthand for foreshadowing something awesome about to happen, it's on. And what makes this fight so great is, again, the stellar animation, but also Momoshiki's increasing frustration with the winners of the Two Cool Dads Tag Team Championship. He seems to start pretty collected, but he soon realizes that this duo of fathers is about to rip him to shreds.

That's one of my favorite anime tropes in general - previously confident villain is now getting wasted in a way that they never could've predicted. It's endlessly satisfying. Watch the rest of the fight here.

Team 7 vs Ku

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This is one of the most underrated fights in Boruto, as it's got a combination of all the stuff I dig about the series: teamwork, clone techniques, Sarada shouting while she punches through stone, etc. What's not to like? I also really, really enjoy genetic experiment bad guys, ones who never asked to be born and now are gonna take out their rage on the world. The Mewtwo/Frankenstein monster type, if you will. Watch the rest of the fight here.

Well, I hope you've found yourself energized for the rest of your day after watching all of these. And if you're still tired, I'm sorry. I've done all I can literally do - yell about Naruto on the internet.

What is your favorite Naruto fight? Which ones do you think are underrated? Let me know in the comments!

--------------------

Daniel Dockery is a Senior Staff Writer for Crunchyroll. Follow him on Twitter!

Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: [email protected]

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

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dianapana · 4 years

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SasuHina Month 2020 - Day 5

Prompt –Collage AU

Long Distance- Part 3

Hinata POV

Sasuke drives like a pro; whenever I’m in the car with Ino I fear for my life, Neji drives really smoothly but he always goes really really and I mean really fast so, I find myself griping the side of my seat a lot. But with Sasuke the speed is good I don’t feel like we’re about to pierce to the vail of time and his movements are confident and easy; he seems to be at ease. We’ve been on the road for about 45 minutes and we haven’t really spoken much but the silence is pleasant and it doesn’t bother me.

“So, you’re from Konoha and about my age how come we never met in school?” Sasuke is the one to break the silence.

“I was homeschooled until 10th grade. And after that I went to Suna Academy for girls. I am what you would call ‘sheltered’. My mom told my dad I should attend public school before university but he just about had a heart attack. He didn’t really want me going to University either” I didn’t mind being homeschooled I’m more of an introvert and I know that; it’s not because I didn’t go to public school it’s just how I am and I’m ok with that. But I did want to go to university so I fought for that as well and when mom came to my aid too dad didn’t stand a chance. I’m happy with my decision; I’ve made a few really good friends and enjoyed the experience so far. I also loved the freedom of doing whatever I wanted without asking for permission. I’m not a party person but I did discover I enjoy certain things that mom or dad would never allow.

“Ah makes sense. My older brother was homeschooled for about 2 years but neither mom nor dad really liked that so when I started school, they sent me to public school from the get go”

“Are you going to be a senior this year?” he looks older and more mature than I do, or at least than I feel.

“Yep, what about you?” I look from the corner of my eyes at the way his muscles move in his arm when he changes the gear. He’s not built like most guys in my classes.

“I’m also going to be a senior. What’s your major?”

“I only declared my major last semester so despite it being my last year I’ll have a lot of courses to take. I’m majoring in education. I was accepted on athletic scholarship and have been a starter on the hokey team since the second semester of my freshman year so I plan to either go pro or coach. What about you?”

“I major in creative writing and minor in photography or as my dad says, I’m paying money to become a starving artist. I’ve never seen a hockey game; my sister likes it and played a little in middle school but I was away in Suna so I never went to any of her games.”

We talk a little more about collage, I find out that he lives with one of his teammates who is also his best friend and another friend that’s a tattoo artist and is majoring in fine arts at KU. I also applied there but the creative writing program is better at the UoA. I did hear that the graphic design department from KU has some of the pest teachers in the country. I told him about Ino who I met at orientation but, we also share the same minor; her major though is flower arts, surprisingly she has a lot of business-oriented courses to pretty much teach her how to run her own shop. We’re about 15 minutes away from KU and once again I feel guilty; he’s been on the road for 4 hours even though under normal circumstances he’d just now hit the road. After passing KU we finally hit the highway and Sasuke speeds up but it’s still comfortable.

We talk a little more for the following few hours and I’m surprised by how easy it is to talk to him. He even explains hockey to me as briefly as possible and says he’ll invite me to a game when the season starts. The implication that we will talk after the end of this pleases me. We’re about half the way to Konoha when we stop so Sasuke can fill the tank and so we can go to the bathroom, maybe drink another coffee since we drank the extra ones I packed as well already and eat something. Thankfully the gas station has a McDonalds next to it.

Sasuke POV

Once we hit the road again after eating the only noise is the radio but we don’t talk. The silence isn’t unwelcomed and awkward. After a couple more minutes I peek at Hinata and see she has fallen asleep. I dim the music a little and continue driving. We have about 5 more hours to go.

About 4 hours later I make another stop at the gas station; I need to go to the bathroom. Hinata hasn’t woken up yet. I’m debating whether to wake her up or not when her phone starts ringing loudly and waking her up anyway. She wakes up and answers in a hurry while rubbing the sleep away from her eyes.

“Hey mom. Yea we’re about…” she looks towards me and I mouth ‘1 hour away’ “1 hour away. We just stopped at a gas station. I’ll see you soon ok? I want to go to the bathroom. Bye” she hangs up not really waiting for a reply.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry I fell asleep for like 4 hours.” Her cheeks are red and I can tell she feel guilty and embarrassed but I shrug.

“No big deal” It looks like she wants to apologize again so I get out of the car. Each of us goes to the bathroom and then Hinata buys some snacks and I get myself a Pepsi and we get back on the road.

Hinata rips open the packet of candy she bought and eats a few. “Do you want some?” she asks. Usually I’m not a huge fan of sweets but I do want some sugar to get energy so I nod. I can’t take my hand that instant off the wheel so I make a small pause with full intention to extend it in a few moments but before I can do that Hinata leans over and pops a candy in my mouth. I am shocked and I look at her from the corner of my eye and she is frozen in place, her face red as a beat.

“I…umm I am sorry” her voice is barely a whisper and she leans back in her seat. “I did that without thinking sorry. I do that whenever Ino drives. In the beginning she would take her hand pff the wheel mid turn and it would freak me out so I developed this habit of feeding her rather than her letting go of the wheel. I am so so so sorry” she talks really fast and her hands are over her cheeks.

“It’s ok. You just surprised me” I say. Hinata I realize is very socially awkward. She blushes easily and apologizes a lot about everything. Despite me trying to reassure her she doesn’t talk much for the rest of the road.

Hinata POV

The candy incident happened almost 20 minutes ago but my heart still beats way too fast. I did that on instinct and the moment my fingertips touched his lips I was gone. I am way too aware of him now to be able to talk to him normally. Even if I don’t want to I notice everything about him. From his muscles that shift whenever he moves the slightest bit, to his beautiful profile, to his dark and shiny hair.

I keep my hands joined in my lap because I’m scared, I’ll do something embarrassing again. I want to touch him. I want to take pictures of him. He would be a great subject for a photoshoot. Images of him in a studio dim lighted and a bit destroyed fill my brain. He would suite something grunge or maybe something with neon lights to give him an eerie atmosphere. That is his attitude, if we were to talk about his looks, he is handsome and beautiful; he would look good surrounded by white, that would make him look like an angel. The angel analogy starts to run while when I imagine him naked with only a silk sheet over his lap. I feel my cheeks growing redder again.

I shake my head and look out the window. The familiar scenery tells me we’re only about 15 minutes away from my house, after waking up I gave him my address to put into the GPS. I curse myself for sleeping half of the ride. There’s no use lying to myself. I like Sasuke, he’s easy to talk and cool. His good looks only aid this predicament.

“We’re almost home” I say.

“You don’t sound that happy. You did say you didn’t want to return. Why is that?” He answers, eyes still focused on the road, his voice even. He really does not think about the candy incident. The knowledge hurts a little. I kind of wanted him to be as shook as I am.

“I liked the freedom I have at University. I’ve never really been the one in charge before” Mom and Hanabi are the only ones home which means we will be doing a lot of shopping. They’ll make me try on things I don’t particularly like. Most of my closet consisted of thing mom and Hanabi think look good on me but that I don’t like to wear so when I got to University I started selling them.

“I get that, I feel the same. That was also my reason for not coming back home” He admits and it shocks me a little, Sasuke doesn’t seem like someone that would let himself be controlled by someone else. This makes me relate to him, admire him for admitting something like that, Neji is very prideful and he would never say something like this.

When the car pulls to a stop in front of my house, I have to admit I am glad. I like spending time with him but I feel myself developing a crush on him that can only lead to my own demise. I look to the front door half expecting mother to come running outside but she doesn’t. Sasuke gets out of the car as well and helps me with the suitcases. I go to open the door but it is locked. I unlock it and the house is silent. Sasuke asks me where to take the suitcases and I abuse his kindness and tell him to follow me to my room. In the mean time I call mother.

“Hey mom I got home…but where are you?”

“Hinata baby I’m over at Mikoto’s come with Sasuke. She wants to meet you and we can all have a nice late lunch or early dinner” Her voice is chipper and light, is…is mom drunk?

“O….k?”

“See you soon baby” She says and hangs up on. I look at my phone and then to Sasuke.

“Um…she’s at your house” I say and he laughs.

“Of course, she is. How did we not see this coming?” Sasuke asks rhetorically as we walk back to the car. I top to lock the door. “I mean they are best friends so of course they are together.”

The drive to his home takes about another 10 minutes and this time when the car stops mom and another woman, I assume Sasuke’s mother wait for us on the front porch and they each have a wine glass in their hands. Mom is smiling wide and chats with Mikoto lively.

“Are they drunk?” I say out loud. Sasuke narrows his eyes.

“I don’t know about your mother but my mom is a lightweight. If she drank a glass of wine, she is not only drunk but wasted.”

“Mom can’t hold her alcohol very well either” I admit, we both turn to look at them still chatting away, obvious to the fact that we have arrived. We turn to look at each other and chuckle a little.

“Come o let’s go join them, drink a glass of wine too. Why should they be the only ones to have fun?” He says and gets out of the car. My heart is beating faster once again. I can’t move for a moment. Sasuke opens my door and extends his hand to me, I look at it and take it. His skin is warm and rough but I feel sparks going up my arm. I look up at him and he’s smirking at me. The sun is just now setting behind Sasuke and it gives him a golden glow. That is the moment when I realize that I already like him, this boy I met today. He lets go of my hand to go get his own bags but I can still feel his touch. I close my eyes and take a deep breath in. When I open them he’s next to me and nods towards out mothers, I nod back and we start walking up the driveway. The two of them finally see us, put their wine glasses down and come towards us for hugs. Mom kisses my cheek and tells me how much she missed me; than she hugs Sasuke and thanks him for bringing me while Mikoto hugs me and tells me how nice it is to meet me.

Looking at this scene with them so happy makes me realize that I don’t regret coming home. I’m glad I could make mom happy. I’m glad to see her having fun with a new friend. I peer from the corner of my eye towards Sasuke. I’m glad I came because I met him. I’m still looking at him when he turns his eyes to me as well and smirks. I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if he feels even remotely like I do. Even if he doesn’t, I hope he will still be my friend because Sasuke Uchiha is pretty cool and I’d love to have him in my life. If his mother is anything like him, I can’t blame mom for calling Mikoto her best friend already.

Part 1 (This happens after the 2nd and 3rd part)

Part 2

#sasuhina month #sasuhina #sasuhina month 2020 #shmonth2020 #sh2020 #sasuke #hinata #sasuke uchiha #hinata hyuuha #diawrites #dia-story

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day One Hundred Eighty-Seven: Open ___ ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata ] [ SasuHina, alcohol, vulgarity ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

He’s never liked weddings. But at least this one has something he can appreciate: that being an open bar.

Sipping his whiskey on the rocks, Sasuke tries to ignore the party behind him. A little difficult to do, however, as the groom’s best man. He never thought the idiot would manage it, but...here they are, celebrating his wedding to his childhood sweetheart.

The same woman that obsessed over Sasuke nearly their entire primary and secondary school careers.

But hey, apparently people change. And he couldn’t be happier for them. Maybe with the pair of them hitched, they’ll have less time to drive him nuts.

...they’re his friends. Really, they are. But sometimes they really test that definition is all.

“Excuse me…”

Glancing over as someone steps up to his right, Sasuke recognizes one of Sakura’s bridesmaids: Hinata Hyūga. Ino had the honor of being her, well...maid of honor. The two have been inseparable since first grade...even if they had their rough spots due to...eugh, competition over who, apparently, was going to end up dating Sasuke.

Now Ino just needs to get married…

Hinata, however, was more their wallflower friend, from what he can recall. The quiet background girl to their bombastic natures and forward actions. And in all honesty, he’s surprised she’s here, all things considered. After all...she was head over heels for Naruto for a long time. It’d been hard enough for her, surely, when Naruto and Sakura started dating. He can only imagine what it’s gotta be like being a bridesmaid in their wedding.

Sure, it might’ve been a while ago now...but first loves always stick with you, right?

Sasuke wouldn’t know. He hasn’t had one yet. And doesn’t really plan on it, in all honesty.

Still, he snaps from his spirit-tinged stupor as she asks the barkeep for...ginger ale? A dark brow perks, and his addled mind doesn’t censor asking, “You feelin’ sick?”

Startling a bit at his voice, she nearly sloshes her soda. “W...what?”

“Ginger ale. Isn’t it good for stomach aches?”

Pale eyes blink. “Um...yes, but...I just...I don’t drink.”

“Whaaat?”

There’s a soft snort at his rather...obvious slip in character. “It’s just n-not my thing.”

“But there’s an open bar - it’s free!”

“And so is the soda,” she replies simply.

Sasuke scoffs...but doesn’t have a retort.

“Is there a reason the b-best man is getting so...sloshed?”

“Psh, I’m not sloshed. Just...taking the edge off,” he mutters.

“...edge?”

“...I hate weddings.”

“Oh...then why did you…?”

“S’not like I could say no,” he sighs, realizing her question before she finishes. “He’s my best friend. I guess. I dunno. He can be a right prick sometimes, but…” Shoulders lift in a shrug.

Hinata gives a smile that’s both sympathetic...and perhaps a bit amused. “I mean...I wasn’t exactly Sakura’s b-best friend in high school. To be honest...I don’t know w-why she asked me.”

“Could be she just wanted to boost her maid numbers,” he offers, examining his held-aloft cup. It’s almost empty...he needs to fix that. “She’s a show-off that way. Probably wants t’be able to shove that in Ino’s face later, that she had more bridesmaids…”

The Hyūga’s expression falls just a hair...and thankfully Sasuke notices. Ooh...he said a bad, didn’t he?

“...or maybe she wants to reconnect,” he tries to amend, but it’s clearly too late. Apparently she hadn’t considered the possibility she’s just number fodder as opposed to a valued friend. Sasuke doesn’t know their relationship: he can’t exactly speak on the matter, just offer a theory. But...clearly there’s a hint of truth to it if she takes it to heart.

After a pause, she slides up onto the stool besides him, taking a sip of her soda. “...maybe. At least it’s been fun, I guess…”

“Fun? Really?”

“In a way.”

“How’s it fun to watch your childhood sweetheart marry someone else?”

...damn it, he really needs to learn to shut up. Maybe he has had too much to drink if he’s going to blurt things out like that...like some kind of asshole.

Hinata flinches. “...that was...a long time ago.”

“...uh huh. Your reaction’s real telling.” Someone shut this man up!

Pale eyes slide to their corners to give him a look. “...and you’re c-clearly still bitter about how Sakura treated you...at least I made an e-effort not to let my feelings ruin their day. I’m sure they’ve noticed the best man sulking and drowning his sorrows…”

“You kidding? Those two only notice me when they want something,” Sasuke scowls, kicking back the rest of his whiskey and flagging for another. “S’far as I know, my duties are over for the night...I’m done. We did the toasts and all that nonsense. All that’s left is cake and dancing...and I hate cake. And dancing.”

“Do you like anything?” Hinata asks with a sigh.

“...yeah. But nothing I like is here.”

“What a winning attitude,” she half teases, half drawls.

“My cynicism is all that keeps me going.”

Her eyes roll. “...I don’t know what’s going to pickle you first: your drinks, or your vinegar attitude.”

At that, he gives a snicker. “...that was a good one. You’ve got a sense of humor. I learned something new.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Though to be fair…I dunno anything about you besides that you were that weird, quiet kid in school.”

“Not much has changed, really,” she assures him. “Now I’m just the w-weird, quiet adult at work.”

“The one everyone’s afraid is gonna go ballistic?”

“More like the one that gets walked all over. But at least I can pay my rent,” she replies, shrugging.

“Well that’s no fun.”

“What about you? Still mister popular?”

His lips fall into a pout. “...nah. Well, maybe a bit. I’m just another lackey in my dad’s company while my brother gets groomed for a top dog role. I’m fine with being whatever, so long as I can afford what I need to. Just gets old, y’know? I love my brother, and I love my dad. But it leaves a guy wondering what it’s like to be the favorite.”

Hinata gives a sympathetic frown. “...sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“No, but...I brought it up.”

“Was only fair - I asked you first.”

The music then quiets, and the pair turn to see Naruto attempting to remove Sakura’s garter for a crowd of luck-seeking guys in attendance.

Sasuke’s face falls into one of disgust. “Eugh...creepy.”

“What?”

“...you take a garment from a newly-wedded woman’s thigh...and you toss it to a bunch of dudes who probably just wanna use it as an excuse to get laid. Just like ladies use the bouquet as one to hint at getting married.”

Hinata can’t help a snort. “...I’ll admit, it’s weirder than the bouquet. But hey, traditions are usually weird.”

“I’d never let my wife do that. Anything under her gown is husband-only, far as I’m concerned.”

A far less dignified snort works its way from Hinata’s nose, almost spilling her ginger ale.

“...what?”

“Noting, just...w-wasn’t expecting that,” she giggles.

There’s an uproar as the garter is thrown, and then comes the bouquet. “...gonna go try?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I’m hardly even looking to date, let alone get married,” she replies with an exasperated smile. “...better to let someone else have that moment. It wouldn’t m-mean anything to me.”

“...fair enough.”

With that, the music kicks back up, and the pair lapse into a companionable silence. He’ll admit...seems Hinata’s grown a bit since they last spoke, what...back in high school? Seems her shyness is still there, just...with a new tinge of sass. Or maybe just a bit more confidence...or it could be a lesser tolerance for bull.

Either way...he’s having fun talking to her. By far, in his opinion, the best part of the night he’s had yet.

“...do you want to dance?”

“Huh?”

“Dance. Do you want to?”

“I told you, I hate dancing.”

“And I hate seeing you mope. You’re here, you might as well do something, right?”

“I am doing something,” he sniffs. “I’m drinking.”

Giving him a look, Hinata abandons her half-empty glass and tugs on him. “...come on.”

“No.”

“Come o-on!”

“I said no!” he retorts, nevertheless stumbling off his stool at her insistence. “The hell’s your problem, lady?”

“I’m bored, and I want to dance. And I don’t know anyone else here well enough to dance with. And you need to take a break. I don’t want you miserable in the morning.”

“Who says you’d even see me in the morning?” he retorts, following her into the crowds.

“I suppose that depends on how the night goes,” she teases back, smile ensuring him that’s one hundred percent a joke.

...but it still makes him pause.

Giving a little shimmy, she tries to egg him into dancing. “Can you still manage basic motor skills?”

“Course I can. Maybe I just don’t want to.”

“Either way, you’re doing it.” She gives him a pointed look. “Dance with me.”

Heaving a sigh, he blinks owlishly at her. “...fine. But you owe me a drink, since I never got my second whiskey before you whisked me away.”

Snorting at the wordplay, she replies, “I’ll consider it...after you dance.”

Sighing, he does a little...something. “...how’s that?”

“Pathetic,” she laughs. “Come on! You have to try.”

“All right, all right…” Following her lead, he just sort of...grooves around. Sasuke’s never been much of a dancer, but...this isn’t too bad.

...and maybe he really wants her to get him that drink.

.oOo.

I had an UBER long day and I'm v tired and only just managed to get this done at two am, sO...I'm gonna be brief, lol I dunno...what this is. I stared at the prompt before the phrase 'open bar' popped into my head, and we got...this. Out of a very tired author's brain. So I have nO idea if it's any good. Hinata feels...a lil ooc? But she's feelin' the sass after her convo with Sasuke, and tbh the look she gives Hanabi in The Last when Hanabi's teasing her tells me that Hinata DOES have some inner sass (even if The Last isn't the greatest movie and I replace Naruto with Sasuke in it, in my head xD). So maybe it's not too bad. I dunno. I'm v tired, ahaha~ Annnyway, I need to go sleep, so that's it outta me for now! Thanks for reading~

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #alcohol //#vulgarity //#best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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365daysofsasuhina · 5 years

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[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day One Hundred Seventy-Eight: It Was Pink ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Hyūga Hiashi, Umino Iruka ] [ SasuHina ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

She took it with her everywhere. The grocery store with her mother, the park, her occasional doctor visits, relatives’ houses...everywhere. Whenever Hinata Hyūga went, her little bunny plush went with her. It was pink, and unbelievably soft, with long floppy ears, and a heart-shaped nose. Big brown eyes seemed to stare right through a person as she’d cling it to her chest like a life preserver. It was her comfort, her best friend, her safety blanket. A first gift from mother to daughter upon their arrival home from the hospital. From the moment her tiny fingers could grip its soft plush form, they rarely let go. Sitting at the table, riding in the car, waiting in line: her constant companion.

And after her mother passed bringing her little sister into the world...it became one of the few shreds left Hinata had of the first person who loved her. Hanabi, that sister, was given a similar gift: a blue elephant...but it never seemed to carry the same weight.

Hinata’s emotional attachment to the toy was unfathomable. Any time it was out of sight, or thought to be lost, she was inconsolable. Her only relief would be its safe return. She slept with it, played with it, ate with it. No matter the task at hand, it had to be there, too.

And then came school.

Hiashi tried to pry it from her. Keep it home. It might get lost, he told her. It might get stolen. Dirty. Torn. But all in all, she didn’t care. Nothing was enough of a deterrent to make her consider leaving the bunny behind. The only compromise her father could eek out of her was to write, with a permanent marker, on the bottom of the plush:

Property of Hinata Hyūga. Along with their address, and their phone number.

Hopefully, that way, it would never get lost...at least, not forever.

So, come the first day of school, Hinata had her backpack, and with its head sticking out the top (so it could breathe, she reasoned) was the plush. Hiashi, taking her in to ensure she settled comfortably, looked almost embarrassed to be seen with a daughter acting so infantile.

All the other first years were milling about, almost all with accompanying parents, some with elder siblings. Looking around in wonder, Hinata barely resisted the urge to fetch her bunny from her bag and hold it tight. After all, she had to spare a hand to hold her father’s. And she tried to never hold her precious bun with less than two hands. Not after so many times dropping it.

Her new teacher was a young, nervous-looking man. Iruka Umino, as he introduced himself to Hiashi. The pair spoke for a time before attention turned to Hinata.

Knees bending to her level, he gave her a wide smile. “Hello, Hinata! I’ll be your new teacher. It’s very nice to meet you!”

Her chin ducked to her chest shyly. “H...hello.”

“She’s rather wary of strangers,” her father warned.

“Oh, that’s fine - every child should be, really. Strangers can mean danger. But I’m sure we’ll get along soon, once we get to know each other.” A hand gently rested atop her head, stroking her hair.

It warmed something in her chest.

“Now, I should warn you…” Hiashi then went on, tone quieting as to avoid being overhead, and embarrassed. “She has a toy that she’s...very fond of. She insisted she bring it to class. I hope it won’t be a distraction…?”

“Oh, not at all! A lot of kids bring familiar things with them to their first class. And to the contrary, it usually helps them focus by keeping them calm! We’ll be sure to keep an eye on it, so it doesn’t get taken by any other kids.”

Not looking wholly convinced, Hiashi simply nodded. Clearly his distaste for the crutch remained.

As the morning aged and the first bell rang, he left her in Iruka’s care to head into work. The rest of his class gathered, Iruka ferried them all into their classroom, giving introductions and starting them on their education. Hinata was settled into her own little desk, plush held to her chest. Given their age and the new environment, the first day was kept relatively tame, and soon, it was time for their first recess.

The play yard was massive: several acres watched over by the teachers as their classes were given time to roam, run, and play. Shy as ever, Hinata mostly lingered by the building, watching the other kids and keeping ahold of her toy.

But after a few minutes, she heard something...strange. Glancing about in search of its source, she eventually parted her way through some bushes in an inlet of the school’s outer walls.

There, tucked away and...crying? was a boy her age: knees hugged to his chest and face hidden atop their caps.

“Um...h-hello…?”

Startling, his head snapped up, tear-stained face looking to her in surprise before dashing at his cheeks with a hand. “W...what do you want?”

“I heard you, and...went to find you. Um...are you - are you okay?”

Expression wilting, he refused to look at her. “...I’m fine.”

“Then...w-why are you crying?”

“...my dad didn’t let me take Mister Roary to school today…”

“Mister...Roary…?”

“My dinosaur. I wanted to take him with me. But Dad said no, and when I - w-when I cried, he…” The boy’s lip trembled. “...he t-threw him away…! Said that t-toys are for babies, and…” Words dissolved into crying, and Hinata wilted in sympathy. His toy was thrown away…? What an evil, evil thing to do! While Hiashi has bemoaned her attachment before, he’s never threatened to take her plush away.

“...I’m sorry…” Getting a bit closer, she crouched, still holding her bunny. Glancing down to it, Hinata thought for a long moment...and then held it out. “...here.”

Sniffling, the boy looked up, still hiccuping before looking to her offering. “W...what…?”

“This is my bunny. She keeps me company. My mama gave it to me a long time ago, when I was a baby. But I think - I think she should go with you.”

Awe slacked the boy’s face. “You’re...giving her to me…?”

Hinata gave a nod. “She’s my best friend. But nobody should be alone. She can go with you, now.”

Still shocked, it took him a moment, but after a pause, he carefully accepted the plush. Dark eyes looking it over, he then brought it to his chest, curling around it tightly.

“...thank you...does she have a name…?”

“I just call her Bunny, but you can call her whatever you w-want. She’s your friend now, okay? Don’t let your daddy see her, though!”

“I won’t.” Nuzzling his cheek against the soft material, he then asked, “What’s your name?”

“Hinata. What - what’s your name?”

“Sasuke.”

“Hi, Sasuke.”

“...can we be friends?”

That got her to brighten. “Y...yeah! Bunny is my friend, and your friend...so we’re friends, too!”

A tentative smile pulled at his face. “...okay.”

And so it was.

Awaiting her father’s arrival after school, Hinata waved as Sasuke walked with his brother, gushing about his new toy, and his new friend.

Of course, the first thing Hiashi noticed was the plush’s absence. “Hinata, where is Bunny?”

“She went with a friend!”

He stared, jaw nearly agape. “You...you gave her to someone else?”

A nod. “...he needed her more than me.”

After a moment, a kind of understanding softened his form. “...well, maybe you’ll see her again someday.”

“...maybe.”

Fate, however, had other ideas.

After two years of school together...Hinata found Sasuke missing from the classroom at the beginning of their third year. After several days of worrying, the rumors made their way to her.

Sasuke and Itachi’s mother had divorced their father, and taken them to another city where her sister and her son lived. Sasuke was now attending another school, in another town.

The news, admittedly, saddened her greatly. The pair had become good friends over their two years of school together. But Mikoto had decided that Fugaku’s hard methods of parenting were...unsuitable for her children.

It had all began with him throwing the boys’ toys away.

But he never did find Bunny.

And that, at least, Hinata took comfort in: knowing Sasuke had a friend to take with him. That, in some small way, part of her, too, went with him.

...she hoped Hiashi was right: that she would see Bunny again. Because now, that meant seeing Sasuke, too.

The rest of primary and middle school passed quickly, each year seemingly shorter than the last. And now, secondary school is already half over, Hinata contemplating where her life will lead once it’s all said and done.

And even after so many years, she still wonders how Bunny and Sasuke are doing.

Arranging her locker on the first day of her penultimate year, she glances over as whispers reach her. Girls flock together, all staring at something - someone? - down the hallway. Trying to glance between them, Hinata’s eyes squint through the masses.

...and then she sees him. There’s no mistaking that unruly hair.

Bag hanging at his side as he scopes out his locker, Sasuke glances between numbered plates and a folded paper in his hand. The gaggle of girls move to the other wall as he gets closer, allowing him passage through the corridor.

Hinata, still surprised, just...stands there.

Glancing to the remaining obstacle as he keeps up his search, Sasuke meets her eyes.

...they stare.

Recognition slowly brightens his gaze. “...Hinata…?”

“...Sasuke.”

Searching her face for a long moment, he then seems to startle. “...hold on.” Tucking his guide between his teeth, he unzips his bag, digging around before pulling something from its depths.

It...it’s Bunny.

Staring at the plush - which hardly seems a day worse for wear - Hinata eventually drags her eyes up to his face. “...you...you still…?”

“I think it’s about time she went home...don’t you think?”

Blinking slowly, Hinata gazes at the plush, softening...and taking it into her arms. Funny...it seems so much smaller now as she gives it a welcoming squeeze. Smiling warmly, eyes closed, she then looks up, lips still lifted. “...it’s good to see you both.”

“Yeah...you too.”

.oOo.

Oh my goshhh, this is so cute xD I had so much fun writing it! A nice change after feeling so blegh about yesterday's, lol I do love me some childhood!SasuHina. They're both just such adorable babbs. Them being friends as kiddos is just...music to my ears. I love it! And them carrying that as they get older, letting it develop into romantic attachment? *chef finger kiss* Perfect xD I super enjoyed writing this piece, indulging in my favorite tropes, lol Anyway, I gotta call it a night cuz...it's late, as usual xD But! I hope you enjoyed, and thanks so much for reading!

#sasuhina #uchiha sasuke #hyūga hinata #hyūga hiashi #umino iruka #best years of your life [ au ]#365daysofsasuhina

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recentanimenews · 5 years

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THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Arrives at the Big Moment: Naruto vs. Sasuke in Episodes 126-132!

Welcome back to the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! I'm Nicole Mejias, and I'll be your host this week as we make our way through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto. Last week, we covered Episodes 120-126, where Gaara and the sand ninjas redeemed themselves and started kicking some major butt! Also, drunk Rock Lee!

This week, we’re passing the 100 episodes left mark by hitting episodes 127-133, and that means it is time for the showdown we’ve all been waiting for: Naruto vs. Sasuke! But first, Gaara has a few minor things to finish dealing with, but it seems like everyone’s favorite sandy boy will be fine. Sadly, this week’s batch ends right before the grand finale of Naruto vs. Sasuke, but we get through a lot of the emotional labor first before the big pay-off by seeing more of Sasuke and Itachi’s mysterious pasts.

Let’s not delay the big showdown any longer and find out what the Features Team thought!

Boy, that sure was an anti-climactic finish to the Gaara vs. Kimimaro fight. How did you feel about the way that resolved?

Paul: I didn't feel that Gaara vs. Kimimaro was anti-climatic, partly because the whole bone thing really creeped me out and I was ready for that to be over, but also because they spent time climbing inside Kimimaro's head-space, and he was ultimately such a tragic character. I'm a sucker for how Orochimaru keeps hoovering up all of the sad, queer ninja kids who don't belong in their original clans and Villages and creating a weird, evil Brady Bunch ninja family.

Kevin: The end of that fight is one of the few things in the entire franchise that disappointed me so much that it came back around to being memorable.

Danni: Honestly, having a character just up and die from an illness feels both so convenient and so subversive that I have to respect it.

Jared: It always kind of felt like that was going to be the inevitable end anyways, so I’m not too bothered by it. Although, I feel like with his ability, ripping out your spinal column and using it should be an ability that would ultimately end you, yet it’s just his illness.

David: The ending was so abrupt that I was surprised it was over well after the fact. Kimimaro has an interesting story but he got shortchanged by being the midboss before the most important fight in the whole first “part” of the show, I guess.

Joseph: I totally loved how it ended! I’m a sucker for subverting expectations like that. Considering all Kimimaro has gone through, it was more than appropriate to die like that on the spot during such a huge fight.

Noelle: I’m still surprised by it, to be completely honest. I could’ve gone for more of course, but there’s something about it that’s so abrupt that made it stick with me. Perfect timing for our heroes, but at the same time, fitting. I felt it worked.

Carolyn: I actually loved that ending. We don’t always need to have a big flashy violent showdown. He fought hard, his body couldn't take it. It’s different and refreshing. I’m a fan.

Kara: After Kimimaro literally pulled out his own spine I was kind of too dazed to register anything else.

Personally, I always found it interesting how other characters were far more interesting than Naruto and Sasuke at times, and I think the growth of Gaara is a great example of that. How do you feel about Gaara now vs. when he first showed up?

Paul: Before, Gaara was a psychopathic but adorable baby murder cinnamon roll, and I loved him. Now he's a sympathetic but adorable baby murder cinnamon roll, and I still love him, only in a slightly different way. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he continues to develop as a character.

Kevin: Well, they were supposed to be designed after Goku and Vegeta, so Naruto being the most boring one might just be an extra faithful homage. As for Gaara, I don’t dislike that he’s mellowed out and is willing to cooperate with people, but I wish that we saw more of a gradual change instead of him just suddenly not being murderous because Naruto’s greatest jutsu is friendship.

Danni: I really liked seeing Gaara act more sympathetic to those around him. I don’t think he’s more interesting than Naruto yet, but I’m looking forward to seeing more of him.

Jared: As someone who was definitely a detractor of him before his turn, I’m enjoying seeing how he’s taken to heart some of the stuff Naruto told him and even throwing it back in the face of Kimimaro. I’m curious to see if he continues to be ever brooding throughout or if that part of him changes or not.

David: He’s definitely more interesting now than he was previously. I particularly enjoyed the scene between him and Lee as they just sort of chilled together under a tree’s shade after the fight with Kimimaro was over.

Joseph: I like Gaara but I don’t necessarily think he’s any more interesting than Naruto is. It’s too early to tell how his character will evolve from here, but I like what they’re doing with him.

Noelle: Gaara is one of my top faves, so I’m not going to pretend I don’t have a bias here. I think Naruto’s still pretty great and I wouldn’t say Gaara is more engaging than he is, but Gaara’s really made some strides. He’s taken the lessons he’s been given and learned from them, and he is becoming more of a complete person as a result. Also, that doesn’t stop his potential in a fight at all. You go, Gaara.

Carolyn: I still feel like there was no character growth here. He just showed up. He wanted to kill Rock Lee not that long ago and there was zero resolution to that. They just join forces out of nowhere.

Kara: I’m not sure how I feel re: character growth. I mean obviously there was some, because he’s not rocking back and forth in a ball of sand whispering to his mother. So, you know, good for him, clearly got some stuff sorted out for himself. I’d be interested to see what happened while we were looking the other way, though. Naruto doesn’t exactly fear flashbacks, so I have a feeling we’ll find out at some point.

Speaking of character growth, Rock Lee has certainly had an interesting arc in these past few episodes. It feels good to see him back, if a bit fast, but since we probably won’t see him for a while, how do you feel about Lee’s send off here?

Paul: Way back in the write-up for episodes 50–56, I proposed that Rock Lee is the Mick Foley of the Naruto universe, in that he's kind of a dork, everybody loves him, and he gets the ever-living tar beat out of him every time he shows up. I have to add an additional way that Rock's trajectory resembles Mick's pro-wrestling career: he loses–dramatically–in all of his most important matches. I'd honestly like to see him win something for a change.

Kevin: To be perfectly honestly, my first thought after seeing the question was “wait, did Lee get a send off?”, so that’s probably not a good sign.

Danni: That was a send off???

Jared: If there’s not a filler arc that’s just Rock Lee getting up to shenanigans, I’m going to be very disappointed.

David: Such is the fate of tertiary Naruto characters.

Joseph: Poor Rock Lee. I love him but this was his least memorable set of episodes in my opinion. I second the “that was a send off?” question.

Noelle: In terms of canonical material (filler not included) I know this is going to be the last we see of Lee for a while. And that’s such a shame–Lee’s a good kid, and I could always take more Rock Lee.

Carolyn: Yeah, I wasn’t aware that was a send off either. I would have just seen that as any other side character episode. They are there sometimes and sometimes they are not.

Kara: Wait, where’s he going? No one told me he was going anywhere. Shoot. Now I’m going to go back and watch his drunken fighting and appreciate it harder.

So, here we are. Naruto vs. Sasuke. The big culmination of the recovery arc is about to occur… and… flashbacks. So, how do we feel about the secrets of the Uchiha clan, the Mangekyo Sharingan, and Itachi after these revelations?

Paul: If I'm reading this correctly, in order to master the ultimate Sharingan technique of the Uchiha clan, you have to murder someone (or multiple someones) that you love dearly. I get that, very ninja-esque. I still don't understand what motivates Itachi to pursue that level of power. That bit about him “testing his vessel” was just gibberish to me. I did like how they changed up some details in Sasuke's flashbacks, implying that Itachi's techniques have the ability to alter people's memories.

Kevin: I am continuing to try to not spoil too much about future events, so for now I’ll stick with this: I like that that a lot of things are getting explored. The Uchiha’s role in the village, what the Mangekyo Sharingan is, some kind of motivation for Itachi killing the clan. It’s all neat and whether you like the answers or not, at least there’s an answer instead of everything completely unexplained for the entire show. That being said… don’t get too attached to most of it.

Danni: I continue to eagerly anticipate how they try to flip it so that Itachi was actually the good guy all along.

Jared: No wonder Sasuke has become the way he is, Itachi and his dad surely didn’t help things. Itachi’s drive to being out of his mind with the vessel talk seemed odd, but having that kind of constant pressure on you to be the best, especially at a young age can cause you to break in bad ways.

David: I actually thought the flashbacks did a lot to make Itachi look like one of the most intelligent and reasonable characters in the whole show, a real role model for Sasuke. Of course, Itachi doesn’t end up finding the results he wants fast enough by working within the system, so he ends up choosing to burn the system itself to the ground instead. His stated reasoning isn’t just odd, it’s also at odds with everything he said leading up to it. How can he justify all this carnage for the sake of power, when one of the core tenets of his ideology beforehand was how badly power and the pursuit of it messes people up? As of now anyway, he doesn’t, and that leads Sasuke to taking all the wrong lessons from his big brother. But maybe there’s more to the story than we’ve gotten so far.

Joseph: I found the past of the Uchiha clan interesting, but wasn’t a huge fan of the way they structured it. I’d rather have a couple solid episodes exploring the backstory than peppering it so much throughout the buildup to the fight that it impacts the pacing. There’s still a ton of mystery to Itachi to dig into, though.

Noelle: My other fave is Itachi, and I very clearly remember how these episodes went down and just how revelatory they were to me. The Itachi we see in the flashbacks, where you can tell Sasuke genuinely loves and admires, compared to the fallout we see now, what a difference. Growing up in the Uchiha clan is really not the best place to be, huh.

Carolyn: This week is very, very flashback heavy. Generally, we get some flashbacks intermingled with fighting. This feels like it leans on the flashbacks a lot. I do feel like they are trying to set it up to appear that Itachi was secretly a good guy and we got him all wrong like this show likes to do.

Kara: I was thinking to myself all through this how there are basically no ninja clans that don’t have drama. Then I remembered, well, this is a society devoted to training (and occasionally modifying your body in horrifying ways) toward a single purpose, of course it’s gonna be a mess every day. I actually didn’t mind the flashbacks being peppered throughout. That’s a thing I know the show does, and it’s an interesting way to slow-release info at just the right time for things to land meaning-wise. It explains a lot, I’ll say that.

So, something that always bothered me: I kind of feel like Sasuke is being a brat. How do you all feel about this development in Sasuke’s character? I never really found myself sympathetic to his personality change.

Paul: I agree that Sasuke is being a brat, but to me that seems less like a drastic change in character and more like a natural evolution given his motivations and back-story. The desire for revenge has been eating him alive from the very beginning, and no matter how many people reach out to him, Sasuke can't see past his own pain and his own rage. I pity him and I want him to find a better path, and that's good character writing.

Kevin: He didn’t really have any kind of personality change. It’s more that he’s always been power hungry in order to kill Itachi, and now he’s seen that he’s nowhere near strong enough and so is desperate to grow even more quickly no matter the risks. It honestly makes a lot of sense, especially now that we know his backstory better. It’s just a shame that he perpetually sounds like he’s ignoring everyone and throwing a tantrum instead of telling people why he’s leaving and/or asking other people for help, since strength in numbers is still strength.

Danni: I don’t quite see him as a brat. If anything I fail to understand why he’s chosen Orochimaru’s path towards strength. Surpassing his brother means nothing if he does so with borrowed power. Itachi got where he is all on his own. Shouldn’t Sasuke do the same?

Jared: I don’t think he ever really changed out of his revenge obsession, but just got to a point where he figured Orochimaru’s plan would be his easiest path to getting the power to take on Itachi. Although it was interesting during the fight with Naruto where he basically had to keep pumping himself up and telling himself that there’s no turning back from this, as if he has to constantly say that or everything just breaks for him.

David: I take contention with both the idea that Sasuke’s personality has changed as well as the idea that this isn’t Sasuke’s last resort. In regards to the former, Sasuke was literally introduced with the idea of revenge as not just his main but his only motivator; every instance we see of him even confiding in his teammates like with the tree-climbing exercise was ultimately another step toward that goal and not much else. Evolving from that, it is only natural that Sasuke would be enticed by something like Orochimaru’s proposed “easy button” of sorts for power. He has been trying to do what Itachi could for essentially his whole life, even before he hated Itachi, as this week’s flashbacks show. However, he has never had the innate talent Itachi did; Itachi tried to teach him that this might not even be a thing he should care so much about, but that lesson got thrown out the window when Itachi made Sasuke hate him and forget all about it. I think what I’m getting at here is that Sasuke hasn’t changed almost at all so far, but if we step back and look at everything we’ve learned about him, he is simply more complicated than we used to think.

Joseph: It’s all really tragic, especially when we get hints of the potential for change within Sasuke. He’s clearly wrestling with the fact that he’s found friends yet he’s a freight train with a single destination. Anything in the way gets plowed through completely, and it’s just kind of sad. I will say I never saw Naruto and Sasuke’s relationship with the sometimes rose-tinted glasses the flashbacks give it, but such is life.

Noelle: Sasuke is 100% a brat, but at the same time, his mental gymnastic routine isn’t one that’s unfathomable for his character. He’s always stated that his driving force is vengeance, something that comes from a truly negative place as opposed to a positive one, so is it really that strange that he’d end up going to extremes? I don’t think so. The seed was always there, and now it’s exploded into the worst venue possible. It makes sense.

Carolyn: The more I rewatch the more I wonder why I liked Sasuke in the first place. He’s such a punk.

Kara: When Sasuke said that line about “I’m special, too,” I was like… that’s it, that’s the character arc. Naruto spent all this time grumbling about how much people like Sasuke, but then he turned that into a reason to get better. I can understand Sasuke’s background and damage based on his family, but this whole being mad because people are more interested in Naruto’s tummy-fox than in Sasuke is childish.

So, we don’t see what happens in the battle yet this week, but how do you all think it's going to go? Who do you have as the winner? And does it even matter who wins, since it may be the end of this friendship?

Paul: Judging by the episode for next week entitled “The Promise That Could Not Be Kept” which features a thumbnail of Naruto covered in bandages, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Naruto gets his butt kicked. I wouldn't worry about the friendship ending. If Shonen Jump series have taught me anything, it's that yesterday's mortal enemies are tomorrow's super best friends.

Kevin: This is Naruto, the world will end before a friendship does. That being said, this is a battle where no matter the outcome, there is no winner. If Naruto takes Sasuke back to the village, it’ll only be by literally dragging him back. If Sasuke wins, Naruto fails everyone waiting for him to bring Sasuke back. If Kakashi intervenes, then the fight had basically no meaning since there is no actual conclusion. But if there is any conclusion, then one of them may well die (of course, we have a bit of clairvoyance on our side knowing that there are 90 more episodes and two sequel series with the name Naruto in the title, so the stakes are lowered a little).

Danni: My gut is telling me that Sasuke will get away in the end, but my brain is telling me that we have months of filler ahead of us and there’s no way Sasuke can just be gone for all of it. Do you really expect any of us to believe this friendship is over, though? Really???

Jared: I’m not really expecting a de facto winner to emerge here, but something to happen and Sasuke is able to continue on his path and Naruto goes the other way. Whether that’s by Kakashi interrupting the fight or they somehow double KO each other. It’s just weird to think as well because this is it before we go into fillerville and I don’t know how exactly you continue on from this type of encounter and leave out someone like Sasuke who’s going to have this brand new story and character arc.

Joseph: Whoever wins… WE win, because episode 133 was an all-timer and one of the most impressively animated fights of the series thus far. It’s a testament to Kishimoto’s character crafting just how emotional it all is, too. It really feels desperate and crucial.

Noelle: Siding with Joseph here- we, the audience are the true victors. I’m so excited to have this fight on my plate again.

Carolyn: Naruto has to win, right? I don’t think this is the end of their friendship, but maybe a super, duper, major strain on it.

Kara: Kakashi’s gonna drag both those dumb buttheads back to the village.

As always, what were the high and low points of this week’s batch?

Paul: My high point is the entirety of episode 133, where Naruto and Sasuke really lay into one another and the production values get cranked up to eleven. I especially liked that key beats in the fight, such as when Sasuke nearly burns Naruto to a crisp with his fire-breathing Jutsu, were played like horror movie beats rather than action movie ones. My low point was all of the recycled footage leading up to that point, as the extensive use of flashbacks often took me out of the moment.

Kevin: High - Naruto and Sasuke actually fighting in earnest. Not a specific moment, but the back and forth of each revealing new powers and giving the fight everything, even a better animation budget. Low - So, does the Leaf just not have law enforcement anymore? The Uchiha were the police force, and I don’t remember anyone ever mentioning the force in present day, nor mentioning the force being rebuilt after the Uchiha were wiped out. Maybe the Anbu took over, but that seems excessive and we would probably see a lot more cloaked figures in masks if that were the case.

Danni: The high point this week is easily the entire real fight between Naruto and Sasuke, no contest. The animation was stellar and my god the creative choreography in that fight was to die for. I could watch it over and over again. I want to say the low point was the multiple episodes of recap, but if that’s what it takes to get the amazing-looking fight we did, just lay the flashbacks on me, Pierrot.

Jared: High point is easily Naruto vs. Sasuke when it actually got going. It was phenomenal. Low point would probably be the constant tease to the fight with a bunch of flashbacks and what not, but in the end, it was well worth the wait.

David: My high point actually is the flashbacks, because of how much more interesting they made both Sasuke and Itachi, which is vital to making the entire conflict actually interesting. Low point is the suddenly deflated balloon that is the end of the Kimimaro fight. Poor dude.

Joseph: High point: Naruto vs. Sasuke for real in episode 133.

Low point: I think they could have condensed the flashbacks or structured them differently. It took me out of the buildup even though it was part of the buildup.

Noelle: High point, Sasuke’s backstory and how that resulted in a massive character breakdown. Also, Naruto vs Sasuke, give me that high-tier animation any day of the week. Low point, the pacing of the flashbacks, but that’s more of an arbitrary point. I really liked the content we got this week.

Carolyn: High point: Honestly that super surprising ending to Gaara’s fight. So original! Low point: Probably Sasuke’s jerk attitude. Chill out, man.

Kara: High point is the Naruto vs. Sasuke fight, as expected. Low point is Sasuke’s level-up lipstick. It’s not working for him. I’d have gone warmer tone.

COUNTERS:

Ramen: 2 bowls Hokage: 0 Clones: 15 + 1 uncountable scene

Total so far:

Bowls of Ramen: 44 bowls, 3 cups

“I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 52

Shadow Clones Created: 367

And that's everything for this week! Remember that you're always welcome to join us for this rewatch, especially if you haven't watched the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

Here's our upcoming schedule:

- May 31st, NOELLE OGAWA will start us off on a journey back into the land of filler.

- June 7th, DAVID LYNN keeps us going as we get even deeper into filler.

- June 14th, PAUL CHAPMAN will detail in the depth of this sea of fillers.

Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 127-133? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

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Nicole is a features and a social video script writer for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

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