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13as07 · 4 months

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Uchiha’s Love #1

(Sakura Haruno)

[Art work is not mine! Credit to DoMyzu]

Requested by: Myself

Keys:

None

Word Count: 4,554

Warnings and/or Pre-Notes:

Non-romantic one-shot; more friendly one-shot vibes

Heavily Itachi themed so my bad

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The knock at the door startles me awake, my adrenaline rushing as I shoot up in bed. On instinct, my hand reaches across the bed in hopes of coming in contact with Itachi. It doesn't, but that's not much of a surprise. He comes and goes as he pleases. Well, as the Akatsuki pleases; more specifically, Pain.

Another knock at the door sounds through the house, echoes of it raking through my body. I have decided I hate Itachi today. Most days I hate him, but despite the burning grudge laid deep, when he's around I can't help but feel like a love-struck schoolgirl.

Before everything, before the massacre, before all the death and destruction, before the hatred Sasuke and I had formed, I couldn't feel anything except love and pride for the Uchiha Chief's oldest son. Our lives - my life was so great before all of it.

Once the third knock comes I move out of my bed. My feet are silent but my thoughts aren't. About ten different trains of thought are running through my head, all ending at the same conclusion; Itachi pissed someone off again.

My eyes drop against the door frame, in search of my katana. It's propped up against the frame as I expect. It's a beautiful sword, but unlike the blade, it's double-sided. An unchanging apology from Itachi; one of many. 'Sorry, I almost got you killed. Here's a pretty sword for when it happens again.'

I let my finger ghost over the colorful laced handle of it as I creek the door open. "Hello," I whisper out, scanning the darkness for whatever threat awaits me.

"Hi," comes the small response. My head snaps down, following the voice. Standing on my doorstep is a... child. A short, twig-thin child.

I scan the outside again, making sure to take my time looking over the empty dirt road and the edge of the forest. After Itachi went rouge, he asked - demanded - me to move further out of the village.

After a couple of weeks filled with lectures about my safety, about him having easier access and a lot of negative side effects from the village, I finally caved. The final nail in the coffin was getting attacked by some of my fellow villagers for 'being an Uchiha sympathizer'.

"Can I help you?" I ask, tone cold as I turn back to the girl standing in front of me. Her hair is in an uneven bob, the bubble gum pink color making up for the rough cut of it.

The child's eyes are wide when she looks up at me, the green color of her irises pushed to the side from her wide pupils; a natural response from the cloudy sky hiding what little light the night gets. "You know... um..." She shifts, eyes scattering around as she thinks over her words.

My hand tightens around the handle of my sword, the crisscross pattern of the material digging into my skin. "I know who?" I ask, doing another environment check. I will say that using a child as a distraction is a new low, even for the enemies of my rouge ninja.

"You used to know Sasuke right?" The words hang in the air, sucking all the oxygen out of my lungs. That's new too. I've never been asked about Sasuke, and the times I've heard about him have been insults themed around him thrown into my face by the village. Well, besides Tachi's old anbu coworker. Occasionally Kakashi will give me updates on Sasuke, but he hasn't been around since before the Chunin exams.

"I suppose you could say that," I answer, turning my attention back to the girl standing in front of me. That's a bit of an understatement. I've been present in his life from the second he was born, which is one of the only good things my situation with Itachi has brought me.

Well, was present. The last thing the sole survivor of Itachi's mental break needs is a constant reminder of his brother. I'm sure he gets enough reminders from the image in the mirror.

Her eyes seem to be even wider as she looks up at me. "I know him too," she tells me, eyes blinking at me as she waits for an answer.

I don't know what answer she wants, let alone expects. "Congratulations." That's probably not the answer she wanted, or the tone she was expecting. Her face scrunches up before her head tilts down. My eyes catch on her headband, the deep imprint of the village stamped into it. "Child, it's late, I'm tired, and not in the mood. What do you want?"

Her eyes pick up for a second before falling back to the ground. "Kakashi-sensei talks a lot about you," she mumbles, her attention on her sandals as she messes with the top layer of dust that covers the ground.

Fucking Kakashi. Mr 'I want to fix it'. I am grateful that the shinobi treats me like an actual person instead of a broken, left-behind piece of the masochist. I'm also grateful that he keeps me in the loop about my lover's kid brother.

Not so grateful that he insists on sticking his nose in my business, or that he keeps pressuring me about everything. Move further into the village, reenlist as a shinobi, make a friend, and find a new boyfriend. I'm pretty sure the last part is more self-driven than it is the Sensei's guilt about Itachi eating at him.

"And?" I push, puzzle pieces sliding into place. This must be Kakashi's little kunoichi who has fallen head over heels for Sasuke. May the Gods either make Sasuke better than his brother or save this girl from the life of being a Uchiha's heart and soul.

It's not all bad. Itachi is very loving and kind to me. Aside from his brother, I'm his whole world. I know that, and he has ensured I never forget it. Despite that, every positive has its negative.

I have boxes filled with letters from him. I also have boxes filled with medical supplies for the next time he shows up half-dead on my doorstep. The same hands that have touched my skin in love have been coated in the blood of the innocent. He's constantly worried I'm too isolated but is jealous of any person I come in contact with. The same voice that lulls me to sleep has told me the crimes committed by his hand. Itachi's love is as strong as his possession. Obsession is not a strong enough word to describe his admiration for me.

Is that the kind of life this kunoichi is signing herself up for? Is she willing to place the golden chain of a Uchiha's love around her neck? A gold chain is still a chain nonetheless. Once you dip into the love of a sharingan user, there is no going back. You will be loved until you die, whether that be from nature, the hands of their enemies, or their hand if they can't take the grief of you leaving.

I am lucky enough to know Itachi would never put his hands on me. Does Sasuke share the same twisted morals as his brother? Anyone can die if it furthers their goal, but not even the gods will rest if my loved ones are hurt; is that another reminder that Sasuke and Itachi were cut from the same cloth?

"Well..." the starter shinobi starts, eyes still locked on the ground. "Sasuke has... he's left the village."

Panic creeps up my chest at her words. If he's left the village, what is his squad mate doing at my door? Has he gone rogue? Or is he taking some space? Is he finally processing the grief of everything that has happened? I wouldn't put it past the councils to label him rouge without him breaking any laws of the land.

"Why might he have done that?" I ask, doing a mental count of how long it's been since the last time I've seen Kakashi. Is that why he hasn't come around? It's been about two months; possibly three. Has Sasuke been gone that whole time? Does Itachi know? He has to know, he checks on his brother as much as he checks on me. Why wouldn't Itachi tell me Sasuke has abound the village?

"I don't know... something about power and revenge," the girl answers, lifting her head to look at me again. That doesn't help the tightening of my chest. Why must Sasuke follow his brother's path so closely? I swear one if not both of the Uchiha brothers are going to be my death.

"Well, that sucks kid," I answer, my tone a bit snippy.

My mind is preoccupied with worry. How mad would Pain be at me if I showed up unannounced? He doesn't seem to mind me coming around as long as I'm not much of a distraction for his 'top member'.

I've talked to the Akatsuki leader a lot; if anything he's the only person aside from Itachi I talk to constantly. I'm not sure if Pain's interest in me is personal like Kakashi's or more 'happy worker, good worker'. Either way, he has decided I'm off limits when it comes to his murder team members, which is a bit of an ego rub if I'm honest.

My mind is flipping back and forth between writing to Pain to request a visit or writing an angry letter to Itachi. As I'm closing the door I settle on writing Pain. This is a conversation that needs to happen face-to-face with Tachi.

"Wait!" The girl yells, her hands slamming on the door to stop me from closing it. That pulls me out of the gutter of my mind. I move the door back open, looking down at the child. "I'm sorry," she murmurs, face scrunched up again. "I just... I want to talk to you."

"Why would you want that?" I ask, letting my face soften a bit. The poor girl looks so distressed. What has Itachi's little brother done to her?

She stays silent, eyes jumping around again. Kakashi hasn't trained his genins on body language yet, which is very evident from the kunoichi constantly shifting her weight. The only way to make her nervousness more evident would be a red stamp mark on her forehead. "Sensei said you're the only person in the village who has dealt with someone like Sasuke."

"Someone like Sasuke?" I poke, trying to figure out what exactly Kakashi has told her about me; more specifically, about my entanglement with Itachi.

"Ya... um... you know, like a rouge ninja," she races out, hands flapping around like crazy. "Kakashi said a lot goes into loving a rouge ninja and a lot goes into loving a Uchiha. He keeps telling me a combination of them is the most stressful thing in the world and I should just give up on Sasuke and with him constantly talking about you I figured you could help me with my thoughts."

The ramble brings a small, sad smile to my face. "Do you want my honest opinions or did you come here to justify your love for Sasuke?" I ask, even though I know it's a little cruel.

"I don't know," she whispers back, eyes on the ground again.

I let out a long sigh, the promise of going back to sleep sliding out with the noise. "Come inside child," I say, opening the door wider so Kakashi's not-so-smart genin can escape the chilly night. Well, perhaps she's a chunin now. I'm not too sure since I haven't had the chance to ask Kakashi about the results of the exams.

The girl walks through the door, stopping in my entryway to take off her shoes. "Um... you can wear mine," I mumble sliding out of my house shoes. I don't get visitors - let alone invite them in, so there are only three pairs of house shoes in my home; Kakashi's, mine, and Itachi's. As the girl slides on my shoes, I slip into Itachi's slippers.

I walk away from the door, once I'm sure it's locked anyway. Someone can break through it but they can't exactly do that silently. A small warning is better than no warning. "So... you know Itachi," the girl mumbles, her head on a spiral as she looks around my home.

My home is quite decorated; pictures of the past, a few photos from recent years, and different artworks from all The Great Nations fill the wall space.

Itachi might be a bad person but he is a good provider. I can't remember the last time I wanted... well, anything. Everything I need or want is gifted to me by him or he provides the means for me to get it. The thought upsets me; another reminder of how chained to Itachi I am. Maybe I should consider reenlisting as a shinobi.

"So," I start, flopping down on the couch tucked against the wall. "What is it that you want to know, kid?"

"Sakura," the girl answers, her eyes wandering around the small living room. Even though the space is small, I have it packed quite full. Living alone leaves me a lot of free time, so the room has turned into a hobby dump center. Baskets of yarn, random piles of books, and art supplies are thrown all over the place.

"Well, Sakura, what is it that you want to know?"

I watch as she walks up to my easel. It's a half-done oil pastel piece of Itachi and Kakashi. I settled on Itachi's color scheme being red but I've been struggling with what color to do Kakashi.

"Is this Sensei?" The girl asks, unclipping my reference photo.

"Ya, it is," I answer, closing my eyes. I can imagine every detail of the picture without having to see it. It's an older photo, taken a couple of days before the massacre. Kakashi and Itachi are sparring, swords pressed together as they come to a standstill in their fake battle. The standstill only lasted a second or two, but there's no surprise there.

"I didn't know Kakashi-Sensei had a tattoo," the little one says, coming over to sit on the couch next to me.

"Ya, he does. So does Itachi and me."

"You have a tattoo too?" Sakura asks, eyes turning away from the photo to me. I nod my head, yes, turning my attention away from her. I'm starting to not like the fact that I invited her into my home.

"Can I see it?" She asks as she scoots closer to me. I let out a soft sigh before shifting around so my right shoulder is facing the girl. I tug my sleeve up, showing off the anbu spiral. "So, you guys all just decided to get matching tattoos or something?"

"Or something," I answer, standing up and making the short walk to the kitchen. Hopefully, a cup of coffee will help calm me. Or at the very least, help me wake up better.

"What does that mean?"

"Ask your Sensei," I murmur, keeping my hands busy with the preparation of my drink. "What exactly do you want me to talk to you about?"

Silence falls in between us, Sakura letting her eyes wander around my makeshift craft room again. "I don't know... just... what's it like?"

I let my attention fall to the dripping of the coffee being made. "What's what like?"

More silence fills the space but I don't mind. Situations like this are difficult to talk about, both for me and for her.

A little bit of warmth fills my chest when I glance at the girl sitting on my couch. She's about the age I was when Itachi... well, became a murder. It's weird to think about, me being in her shoes just five years ago. At least she'll have more of a support system, and someone to relate to. At least I can offer her the comfort of understanding I didn't have when Itachi went rogue.

"What were Itachi and you like before he... left," her words come out slow like she's worried I'll lose my composer from her questions. That's not surprising, rumors about me spread even now because of my anbu days, but mostly because of the Uchiha. I can only imagine the rumors circulating now that Sasuke has left the village.

I think about it for a moment, trying to replay the long-ago years. "Um... we were all always busy. Coming and going all the time from missions. Itachi was busier than everyone else so he was always so stressed out. He never had time for anyone, including himself. If the Hokage wasn't keeping him busy, his clan was. Most days were filled with apologies for not having time for me, but..." I tilt my head, shifting my focus back to the coffee maker.

"But?"

"But when things were good, they were so great. He's always been a romantic. Not like loud, elaborate romantic. More quite romantic," My heart swells with love for the dumb, murderous man I can't get over. My ring clinks against my coffee mug as I pull it out of the cabinet.

"What's the difference between a loud and quite romantic?" The girl asks, scooting off the couch and joining me in the kitchen.

I see her eye catch my ring as it continues to clink against different things I grab. It's Itachi's mother's wedding band. It was a gift he gave me; more like a sign of ownership. Tachi isn't too happy with Kakashi snuggling up to me.

"I don't know how to explain it. A loud romantic is like someone who always has to hang on you when you're out and about. Someone that makes their love take up as much room as possible, I guess."

The girl nods along as she listens to my words, eyes glossed over in confusion. Maybe I won't be able to show her as much comfort as I thought.

"Quiet romantic is... things like your partner making you breakfast even though they can't stay to eat with you. Someone who takes care of things for you without you having to ask and half the time not notice. I don't know, something like that."

The room is quiet again as I sip on my drink. I watch Sakura, her mind preoccupied. Perhaps she's rolling through memories of her Uchiha, trying to find the times of quiet love. I know it took me a while to figure it out; to put together Itachi's love for me wasn't any less because he chooses to show love in smaller, less noticeable ways.

Thoughts of the ring in my hand fill my head as I focus on it. Was it a proposal? Or just his jealousy getting the better of him? How would that even work? Us being married?

"How alike do you think Sasuke is to his brother?" My eyes jump up to meet the girl's green ones. The question hangs in the air for a while as I think it over.

"Well, I don't know Sasuke as well as I did when he was younger. I think he's more like his brother than he likes, but less like him than he notices." The answer isn't really an answer, but I still think it fits. Itachi is driven by his undying love for his brother and me. Sasuke is driven by his hatred. Love and hate aren't as different as people think.

"What's it like? Being in love with a Uchiha? Or, well, having a Uchiha love you back?" I notice the sadness trickle into her eyes but I leave it be. I know how hard it is to tell whether anyone - let alone a Uchiha - loves you back.

"Itachi is very busy with..." I stop myself, taking a second to glance around the room before setting back on Sakura. "Being rogue. No one... a ninja doesn't go rouge to do good things. I have to live with the fact that I know some of the things he's done, and the fact that he's done worse than he'll fess up too. It's scary but... it's also comforting."

"Comforting?" She asks, face scrunched up again. "How could it be comforting knowing you're with someone who has murdered people? A lot of people."

I let out another sigh, letting my eyes wonder again. "I spent a long time wondering why I couldn't get over him. Wondering why I liked a... murder more than any of the shibobis in the village. The answer I think I've settled on is when Itachi falls to his knees at my feet, when he holds my legs in desperation for my love, for any part of me I'm willing to give him, it causes... it makes me feel important, valued."

My eyes settle on Sakura again, her own eyes wide as she looks at me. "Uchiha's are very... ego-driven, but their love is so much stronger than their egos. When a Uchiha is willing to give you that love... it's almost set in stone that they would turn the world upside down for you."

I fall silent, giving her time to let my words sink in. "You don't think anyone else would do that for you?"

"No," I answer quickly, getting a bit frustrated that I can't word the feelings Itachi pours into me in a way that Sakura will understand. "A shinobi's purpose is to serve their village. A 'good' shinobi would sacrifice their partner for the village. Itachi would sacrifice everything in this world before he let anything happen to me."

My eyes study her face, trying to read her expressions. Her face is scrunched up for a while before it softens again; a light bulb turning on behind her eyes. Maybe this girl does understand what I'm saying, even just a little bit.

"Knowing someone would go to war if you're harmed is a better promise than knowing your partner will put their job above you. Don't get me wrong, I know how terrible of a person Itachi seems to be; how terrible he can be. People see him as a murderer, a selfish Uchiha, someone who excels at manipulation. But, I know where I lie on his priority list, I know anything I want will happen if I ask, I know at the end of the day his actions are to give me a better life, even if I don't understand."

Silence envelopes us again, me watching Sakura as she thinks over my words. "It doesn't seem as bad as Sensei made it sound," her voice is small as she continues to think.

"It probably is as bad as Kakashi made it seem. Nothing positive comes without a negative. I might be protected from everything in the world but it becomes isolating." I blink my eyes rapidly, pushing down my loneliness to stay matter-of-fact. "I don't know if it'll be the same with Sasuke, but carrying the weight of what Itachi could and would do if he sees someone as a threat, if he misreads a situation, or gets too jealous... it's scary knowing what he can do."

My hands are shaky as I lift my mug again. Thoughts swirl in my head as I sip on my drink. Am I putting Sakura in danger with this conversation? Will Itachi see her as a threat? Or will he leave it be? Does he know he's isolating me? Or is he doing it on accident?

"Uchiha-san?" Sakura calls, pulling me out of my thoughts as a weird feeling crawls up my stomach. I don't know if I like being called that.

"Yes, child?"

She stays quiet, staring at me for a while as she works out her next question. "Kakashi-Sensei said something like 'you're in an open cage with broken wings' or something. What does that mean?"

I smile softly at her, Kakashi's voice ringing in my head with the same quote he's said since the death of Sasuke's clan. "Your Sensei says that I 'live my life with the door of my cage open, but with the wound of clipped wings'."

"Yes! That's what he said!" The girl cheers a bit before the excitement is replaced with sadness again.

"It means I live in fake freedom. I'm free to do what I want when I want because of the safety net my Itachi offers me. However, I still live with the terrible things he's done. With the knowledge of the things he has and is willing to do."

Sakura's face sinks with my words. A bit of my grief rubbing off on her. "Is it worth it?" The question is soft and asked to her feet instead of me.

"I think it is. I... he's not around a lot. He's always busy but I know I'm always on my mind. I know that I'm loved." I stop again, resetting my head for a second before settling on my mini-me.

"Loving someone like Itachi - someone like Sasuke, means you give a lot. You give your time with them, your own time, always being on call because you don't know the next time you'll see them if there will be a next time. You give a lot of your emotions. Worrying about them and what they're doing, to who they're doing stuff to. Grievance to the people they hurt, to the life you used to have, to the person you used to love, the person you used to be."

I snap my eyes closed, tilting my head up at the bittersweet feeling forming with my next sentence. "You give love, so much love, unconditionally. You carry a million feelings wrapped up in that single feeling of love. Being that safe space for them, sharing their burdens, their mistakes."

I tilt my head back down, locking eyes with the younger girl again. "It's a lot of mental burden, and not everyone can carry that. If Sasuke loves you, he won't love you any else because you struggle with your feelings day to day. Some days I love Itachi more than life, some days I hate him, and some days I hate myself. No matter what I feel, Itachi still loves me, still knows it's his fault for my conflicting emotions, and he's patient with me."

Once again I watch, waiting for the girl's reaction. Her face is scrunched up again and I'm sure her mind is running a mile a minute. "Do you... do you think Sasuke will be like his brother?"

"I know Sasuke is not Itachi. I don't know what he'll be like, I don't know where you lay on his line of importance, I don't know anything about what he'll be like. What I do know is what might happen. What you might have to deal with. I can't predict the future but I can help you be prepared for it."

It takes a second but Sakura's face softens again, a sad smile on her lips as she looks at me. "Uchiha-San?" I hum a yes, preparing for whatever she's about to say. "I'm glad I have you to help me through this."

"I'm glad I can help you through this as well, child."

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#sakura haruno #sakura oneshot #sakura haruno oneshot #naruto shippuden #naruto shippuden oneshot #naruto shippuden x reader #sakura x reader #sakura haruno x reader

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n-coma · 8 months

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Naruto Fan Cast: Part One

I fear the day when Netflix will attempt to create anything Naruto-related. Still, I am curious about what it would look like. So, before Hollywood lays its hands on our beloved fandom, allow me to introduce you to my personal fan cast.

Before we begin, let's agree on two points: 1. These are just subjective ideas that you might disagree with! So feel free to respond with your own suggestions; 2. In my fanon, the Naruto universe includes different races and nationalities. For example, Uchihas, Hyugas, Naras, and Sai are completely Japanese in my head. Meanwhile, characters like Tenten, Guy, Lee, and Rock Lee are Chinese. And the list goes on. In this post, I will only cover European/American actors cast for non POC characters. The POC fan cast will be posted later; it requires a bit more time and attention.

Here we go.

Naruto — Rudy Pankow

Look, he is a perfect Naruto for several reasons. He isn't overly 'Chad' nor too feminine. He has messy blond hair and exudes a chaotic energy (it radiates from him even in pictures). If you're still not entirely convinced, watch this YouTube video featuring him and his funniest moments. Those dimples! Blue eyes? I mean, hello?

Sasuke will be covered in the post with all the Asian characters.

Sakura — Piper America

Big forehead? Check. Pink hair? Yep. She has that unpredictable look in her eyes where you don't know what to expect from her.

Ino — Hunter Schafer

You might recognize her from Euphoria. She possesses this tall beauty combined with a flower-girl energy. Her red carpet look perfectly aligns with Ino's jutsu. The hair pieces are a perfect match, and have you noticed her nose? Ahhh!

Kiba — Dylan Obrien

This was the easiest fan cast ever! Just look at him! He embodies that dog energy in the best possible sense. Also, we'd hire Tyler Hoechlin for motion capture as Akamaru *winks*.

Temari — Florence Pugh

What I appreciate about Temari is her strong backbone and unapologetic character. Florence Pugh not only possesses those qualities, but she also has a broader facial structure that resembles Temari's. With her green eyes, dirty blond hair, and similar demeanor, what more could we ask for?

Gaara — Bill Skarsgård

Hear me out! We can always color his hair and do some black eyeliner as well as red tattoo, but when it comes to capturing Gaara's haunting eyes, who could do it better than Bill Skarsgård himself?Who will have such a slim, prince-like bone structure? Your honor, I rest my case.

Kakashi — Robert Pattison

We needed an actor with eyes that express this nostalgic, covered-in-ashes pain, hand in hand with melancholy and a 'not giving a fuck' vibe. Robert Pattinson or Robert Pattinson? After playing Batman, he has already learned how to portray a traumatized, tired orphan. What more do we need? I did not find his pictures with grey-colored hair, so let me include this black-and-white photoshoot.

Asuma — Hugh Jackman

Charisma, beard, and a bit of spice. Kushina — Abigail Cowen

Hollywood boasts around ten ginger actresses, and they all seem to cycle through fandoms like hand-me-down clothes. However, from among those ten, we had to choose the one who possesses a strong personality and a look that could intimidate. So, we're going with Abigail Cowen. She's already played a role with power struggles before, making her a good fit for depicting Kushina's struggle with Kurama.

Minato — Danny Griffin

Golden Retriever energy! What more can I say? He is the real-life boyfriend of Abigail Cowen (Kushina) and my personal choice for the position of the 4th Hokage.

Tsunade — Elizabeth Olsen

It was a hard choice between her, Scarlett Johansson, and Lady Gaga. But let's be fair — she has the mommy energy, she has a princes-like energy, and looks very much alike the character.

Jiraya — Anson Mount

Daddy.

Okay, I guess this is it for now.

Get ready for my next post on the Akatsuki casting, and make sure to stick around for the upcoming Asian and African fan casts! 🌟

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insomniac-jay · 3 years

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Redoing My Remastered THH Girls Redesigns

I needed to fix them bc they were so ugly. I might do a redesign series of if I to keep the high school aesthetic.

Reblogs > Likes

I wanted to give her both detective and spy vibes bc I think she’s great with both.

She has shorter hair but I kept the braid. Her canon jacket now becomes a trenchcoat with large gold buttons and purple belt, sleeveless black catsuit, white long sleeve undershirt, and her purple boots bc I like them. Her coat has a high collar and the symbol of the Kirigiri Detective Agency on her lapel. The catsuit has a zipper on it so she can easily take it off whenever she wishes. She keeps her gloves but they’re longer. She also wears cat-eye glasses and a chain on her belt.

Sayaka Maizono

I WILL get her right this time. I decided to do mostly idol but with some hints of y2k in there bc I’m still not over y2k Sayaka. I also took some inspo from Toastie’s redesign of Sayaka and the comeback outfits of the idol group Oh My Girls.

She wears a light blue headband with a big pink bow on it, white blouse with frills on the sleeves and collar, dark blue tie, light blue button up tube top, asymmetrical plaid pink pleated skirt with three small belts that connect to a plain white skirt, dark blue kitty socks, and holographic heels. She also wears music note earrings.

Celestia Ludenberg

I wanted to go for a bit of a Queen of Hearts aesthetic for this one. I was also inspired by an artist on Instagram who gave Celeste a skirt resembling a Roulette table (if anyone can tell me the artist’s name that would be nice).

I have two main fashion hcs for Celeste: Gothic lolita and Y2k so I’m gonna try and combine those. She wears a black mesh shirt, black lolita style off shoulder dress with short puffed sleeves and red lining, the skirt is in the shape of a Roulette table, light red petticoat with different card suits underneath, black stockings, and her heels from canon. I decided to give her jewelry that reflects her desire to be royal and her talent of gambling.

Aoi Asahina

I want them to look like a swimmer.

I gave them curly hair, freckles, bean eyebrows, and brown eyes bc I say so. She wears a pair of teal goggles, light pink swimsuit with a donut on it, ocean blue shorts with mermaid scales, and a pair of baby blue Crocs with charms on it. She also wears a cute mermaid hairclip.

Chihiro Fujisaki

I put her hair in pigtails and made her chubbier bc I want that for her. She also has freckles and bean eyebrows and braces.

Chihiro wears a light green tweed hoodie with programming and coding pins and the collar from her canon outfit, white dress shirt, brown sweater vest, and a pair of cute pajama pants. She also wears light green Crocs with charms.

Toko Fukawa

I wanted to give them a mix of nerdy and dark academia at the same time as well as took inspo from her beta design. I got rid of the braids bc they’re ugly and replaced them with a bun.

She wears a dark purple blazer with white lining, white dress shirt, coral turtleneck, dark purple skirt with a slit bc it’s Toko, knee high socks with garterbelts, and black dress shoes.

Sakura Oogami

Queen I’m so sorry I haven’t done you justice in the past. This time I will.

She wears a red sports bra with a trans pride flag and floral designs on it, pink sweatpants, a cute bunny hoodie, and some boxing shoes. I decided to tie her hair up bc it’s gonna get in the way of your fighting, queen.

Mukuro Ikusaba

He wears a green tank top, black long sleeve shirt, camo vest, baggy black pants, and combat boots. He also wears a dog tag necklace and a black jacket as well as carries a sniper in a case on his back.

Junko Enoshima

She wears a big red fur coat, monochrome spaghetti strap crop top with monochrome lacing, red pencil skirt, fishnet stockings, and red pumps. A pair of red heart-shaped sunglasses rest atop its head and she walks around with a little Monokuma cane for extra flair.

#danganronpa redesign #kyoko kirigiri #sayaka maizono #celestia ludenberg #aoi asahina #chihiro fujisaki #toko fukawa #sakura oogami #mukuro ikusaba #junko enoshima #danganronpa trigger happy havoc

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givemestories-givemelife · 4 years

Text

Blueberries, Lavender & Hot Matcha Tea (Part 2)

A SasuHina ficlet

PART 1| Part 2

AN: THANK YOU SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO COMMENTED, OR RE-BLOGGED, OR LIKED THE FIRST PART TO THIS FIC. It truly means more than I can say. Helped a lot with motivation and it’s super cool to know that people are reading the things I write. I hope the follow up chapter doesn’t disappoint <3

Summary: Hinata has a run in with a familiar face.

Warnings: Brief mentions of grief and anxiety (because Hinata’s a nervous butterfly) but nothing remotely heavy. Also there’s alcohol consumption.

Word count: 6167

__________________________

Lavender

Hinata knows that she needs to start putting herself out there. She can’t stay holed up comfortably in her room while years of her life pass on by, listening to cigarettes after sex under the safe warmth of her white fluffy blanket that still smells like her late mothers perfume, and sniffing essential oils like they’re some kind of soft-core drug to distract her spiralling thoughts from every embarrassingly mortifying predicament she’s ever found herself in.

She’s been trying really hard not to think about spilling her extra hot matcha latte all over this potentially handsome stranger a few days ago. She thinks - potentially - because she did not have the courage to look at the man's face after maiming him and probably ruining his expensive suit!

Hinata’s sure she must have ruined his entire morning, which must have ruined his whole day, and now he probably hates her. Oh goodness, Hinata strongly dislikes the thought of people out there in this world walking around hating her.

Wow, these thoughts are entirely useless, she really needs to stop her brain from going down these awful paths.

Today Hinata has decided to try really hard not to wallow in the comfort of all her numbing guilty pleasures.

So, when Sakura Haruno, the loud and outgoing girl with pretty pink hair, who always smells like strawberries and vanilla from her photography course asked if she wanted to hangout and work on their portfolio’s after class; Hinata was thankful for the distraction.

They had spent that afternoon drinking green tea at the kitchen table in Sakura’s little homey apartment, showing each other their favourite pieces and sharing feedback.

“You have to include this one, it’s so cute” Sakura gushes, pointing at a print of children finger painting; a mischievous little boy is smearing bold red paint all over the face of a girl whose expression is twisted in pure terror.

“You have a real talent for capturing the essence of people.” She continues in a dreamy tone, “it’s like you’re able to capture the moment they’re most alive, even if it’s just the little moments, y’know?”

Hinata blushes at the complement, “th-thank you Sakura.”

“It's kind of ironic that people are your main muse considering how afraid of them you are.” She teases.

“I’m not sca-AhyH!”

Of course, that’s the moment a woman with a giant blond ponytail barges through the door brandishing a bouquet of peonies making Hinata squeal. “Sakura I swear to god if you ate the last of the ice-cream again, I’m gonna- Oh! hello there.” The crazy flower lady stops mid-threat noticing a stranger in her apartment.

“Ino this is Hinata from class, Hinata this is my roommate Ino.” Sakura introduces, failing to constrain her laughter.

Ino’s demeanor does a 180 as she gently rests the flowers on her lacquered kitchen counter and approaches Hinata in a trance like state. “Your hair is so long and gorgeous, it totally reminds me of the violets we have at the flower shop -- you have to let me braid it.” She breathes and Hinata’s eyes are as wide as the sky outside.

“Ino, tone it down you’re going to scare her.” Sakura chides, rolling her eyes, not at all surprised by her roommate's antics. “Do you always have to act like such a spazz?”

“I am but a simple girl who is a slave to all things beautiful.” Ino proudly counters running her fingers through blue strands and Hinata mentally notes that she smells like a garden.

Sakura’s phone vibrates on the kitchen table, “it’s Naruto,” she says glancing at the screen. “Wondering when we’ll be coming over.”

“I don’t know, an hour or two? Tell him we’re bringing Hinata!” Ino adds excitedly and starts to braid blue hair without permission. “You should come out tonight with Sakura and I, meet the rest of the gang.”

“Oh.” In high school Hinata was never able to make friends with girls, and spent most of her time in the photography club’s black room developing pictures. Her introverted nature made it difficult to connect with people, but in this moment, the prospect of meeting Sakura’s friends, and the inclusive enthusiasm from these girls is making Hinata a little emotional. “I-I don’t know.”

“Hinata, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but I think it could be good for you,” Sakura encourages.

“Carpe diem bitch,” is Ino’s convincing addition.

Hinata giggles, absent mindedly sniffing her wrist searching for the comforting sweet scent of the fragrance she’s wearing today, “yeah, okay.”

Ino makes a pleased sound and saunters over to a kitchen drawer to snatch a pair of scissors and clips the head off of one the peonies, then ties it into the base of Hinata’s braid. “You really have no idea how cute you are Hinata,” she coos observing her work in admiration and Hinata feels warm all over.

Hinata likes the rapport between Ino and Sakura, there’s something about their friendship that she finds inspiring.

When they split what’s left of the chocolate ice-cream and start getting ready for a night out, Hinata can’t help pulling out her camera and snapping shots of Ino with her shades of purple and Sakura’s vibes in red. Hinata feels outshined in her usual high waisted mom jean and oversized grey patterned sweater.

But that’s okay, she still feels like one of the girls.

~~~

Ino had made a strong case for wanting to get her steps in for the day, (since her fitbit said she had only reached 8243 so far) convincing the girls to walk to Naruto’s apartment instead of taking the bus. On their stroll Sakura and Ino began giving Hinata character profiles of everyone she was going to meet and Hinata found them to be quite amusing.

Ino playfully starts with, “Shikamaru’s like, my best bro. I’ve known him forever, smartest guy I know but a total stoner and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything.

“Choji gives the best hugs and he loves giving them, so if he looks like he’s going in for one - just let it happen - you’ll hurt his feelings if you don’t.”

“Naruto and Kiba are basically the same person and are the biggest loudest dorks on the planet,” Sakura chimes in, “but they’re also super friendly and kinda funny if you can get over their lack of brain cells.”

“Then there’s Sasuke,” Ino says, and hearing that name strikes a familiar chord with Hinata, triggering flashes of fond memories. “He’s really hot, but kind of a dick,” Ino hugs herself smiling at a distant memory, “basically, we all know each other from going to the same high school -”

“Ino and I had the hugest rivalry back then because we both wanted him.”

“What happened?” Hinata really wanted to ask if they were talking about Sasuke Uchiha, but didn’t want to interrupt the momentum of their story.

“We were so stupid causing all sorts of drama in our little social circle nearly tearing it apart, and Sasuke wasn’t having any of it, one day he told us to grow the fuck up and to leave him alone.” That did kind of sound like something Sasuke would say, but that would just be too big of a coincidence, wouldn’t it?

“We both cried.” Sakura snickers sheepishly.

“Eventually we finally realized that friendships should be forever-”

“And boyfriends are whatever.” Both girls enthusiastically finish the rehearsed line making silly faces at each other.

Hinata giggles at that, whishing she had taken a picture, “awe, that’s so cute.”

“And now he’s one of our good friends, but I just want to warn you that he can be cold and he can be mean and if he says something dickish, please don’t take it personally.”

Hinata hums, only half listening to Ino. Was it possible that when Hinata arrives at this apartment she was going to be face to face with the childhood friend she hasn’t seen in over a decade?

Guess she’ll just have to wait and see.

~~~

When Hinata enters the apartment, her senses are immediately overstimulated; it smells salty like ramen and sour with beer which clashes with how clean and pristine the space actually is. It’s decorated with blacks, whites and a few splashes of colors, but overall has a very minimalist feel.

Hinata barely has time to kick her shoes off before she’s surrounded by strangers, and can’t stop the heat from suffusing her face from the disorienting barrage of unwanted attention.

“Hey bitches!” Ino yells at the group, “we’re here! We know you missed us!”

“This is the beautiful Hinata,” Sakura adds, and Hinata really wants to hide under a rock somewhere. “Be nice okay, she’s really shy.”

“Hey I’m Naruto.” A blond man appears beaming at her, outstretching his hand. “I have never seen eyes that look like your eyes before!”

“Oh.” Hinata went to shake his hand but was interrupted by another hand grabbing hers and kissing it, which is so uncalled for.

“And I’m Kiba, don’t listen to that guy, he’s a complete moron.” He says with a wolfish grin and Hinata has no idea what’s going on anymore.

When she tries to turn away, she’s met with the kind face of a stout man in a green Zelda t-shirt with his arms wide open for an inviting hug. She decides to accept her fate by awkwardly stepping forward wearing a confused pout, and lets the arms of a stranger wrap around her in what is surprisingly one of the best hugs she has ever received. He smells nice, Hinata thinks. Savoury and warm like a thanksgiving dinner. For a moment she actually feels safe, like a veil has been thrown over the sudden wave of chaos, giving her a quiet moment for her heartbeat to settle, “I’m Choji, it’s really nice to meet you Hinata, try not to worry so much, everyone here is harmless, I promise.” He says, rubbing gentle circles on her back.

When Choji pulls away, he sends her one last reassuring smile before padding off towards the ponytailed man currently dying of laughter, and joining him on a leather couch. Choji grabs a handful of potato chips from a bowl on the marble coffee table and starts earnestly snacking.

Snacks! Snacks sound really nice right now! Tasting tasty things can sometimes be a good distraction when Hinata is overwhelmed. She self-consciously shuffles forward towards the provisions, drawn towards the colorful array of fresh fruits, grabbing a small handful of blueberries and popping one of them in her mouth. She tries to ignore the pair legs in her periphery... she needs a moment before making another introduction.

Hinata jumps feeling a presence directly behind her, she twirls around to see Naruto pulling back appearing extremely guilty.

What was he doing? Was he pointing at her hair?

“Hehehe, sorry about that,” he says, smiling sheepishly, and scratches the back of his head, “I was just pointing out to my friend here, how beautiful your hair is, what a wonderful shade of blue,” he made a weird face directed at someone over her head, “are you enjoying those, blueberries?”

Okay.

Hinata hears more laughter coming from ponytail boy on the couch.

Weird.

Hinata turns to see who Naruto is looking at and-

Oh.

Sasuke?

Sasuke was here.

It was her Sasuke!

She instantly looks away, eyes wide, staring down at the hardwood floors.

Well, not her Sasuke. But an older version of the one she knew as a child. The one she met that one summer years ago and spent nearly every day with him before her mother fell ill and her family moved away in the wake of tragedy.

And he was... Glaring at her? No, he was glaring at Naruto? He kind of looked like he recognized her, but why would he be glaring?

“This is fucking stupid,” Sasuke seethes and takes off towards the kitchen, where Kiba and Ino are talking and drinking.

Ouch.

Sakura approaches Hinata with a glass in hand, Hinata stares at the ice clinking as she offers it, “vodka soda, with lime?”

Well, one drink couldn’t hurt, Hinata thinks.

She glances over at a brooding Sasuke leaning on the kitchen island sipping his beer.

She might need it.

~~~

It’s nearly an hour later and Hinata feels the dread sinking deep into the pit of her stomach. She desperately wishes she could conjure up some courage, approach Sasuke, and see how he’s been after all these years, but he still hasn’t left from his spot in the kitchen.

She’s starting to believe that maybe he doesn’t recognize her, which is a rather sad thought.

Hinata also appears to be at the butt end of some sort of mean inside joke that she doesn’t understand, ponytail bo- Shikamaru and Naruto joined Sasuke in the kitchen and kept making not-so-subtle glances her way -- but whatever -- she’s a big girl, she’s not going to cry about it even if she wants to.

Currently she’s sitting on the puffy leather couch between Choji and Sakura, Sakura is sharing the memes she’s saved onto her phone this month with Ino and Kiba while Hinata stares down at the melting ice in her drink and Choji attempts to calm her with platitudes.

Hinata doesn’t regret coming tonight despite feeling like the biggest fool in existence.

After all, tonight she actually has the opportunity to reconnect with someone she still thinks about, even after all these years.

She has always wondered what had happened to that bratty boy she met that one summer.

The sinking feeling grows deeper and Hinata feels her heart beating in the drums of her ears.

She takes one last tentative sip before downing the rest of her drink and summons every ounce of bravery she didn’t know she had to strengthen her resolve.

She stands from the couch with shaky determination ignoring Choji’s concerned inquiry, then forces one foot in front of the other strait towards the guiding bright lights of the kitchen.

The easy conversation awkwardly dies down when she arrives beside Naruto and Sasuke. She feels both their gazes land on her, and Hinata spots an ugly orange magnet on the stainless-steel fridge Sasuke is leaning on that has the phrase - believe it! - stamped on it and chooses to direct most of her focus on the positive affirmation.

“Uh, hey Hinata, you doing okay?” Naruto asks, slightly taken aback. Hinata nods still focusing on the magnet, face heating up as the beginning of a buzz tingles in the corners of her mind. “Can I get you another drink?”

She looks down at the empty glass she grips and nods again, muttering a quiet thank you, and handing it over. He takes it and moves further down the island to chat with Shikamaru and starts making her another.

“Hi Sasuke,” she forces passed her chapped lips.

“Hello Hinata.” Sasuke says, sounding about as uncomfortable as she feels and she looks up, hopeful, to meet his burning gaze and quickly looks back at that stupid orange magnet.

“So, you do remember me?” She asks, confused as to why he’s been ignoring her since her arrival.

“I remember how two days ago you ran into me quite rudely, burning me with tea.”

Hinata’s brain short-circuits.

“Wait what!?-”

No! No no no no no. Impossible. No.

“-That- that was you? oh my god, oh no! I am so sorry about that, I really wasn’t looking where I was going, I-I can’t believe this, I swear you just came out of nowhere though, oh my goodness, I can’t believe that was-”

“Please just stop before you give yourself an aneurysm.” Sasuke lifts his hands in a placating manner and Hinata snaps her mouth shut. “So that’s not how you seem to know me?” He asks, further rankling as the conversation drags on.

“So you don’t remember me.” She says mostly to herself, completely humiliated by this entire exchange, every time she opens her mouth it’s like falling down a flight of stairs -- Hinata seriously wishes she would reach the bottom already.

“Remember you from... where?”

“I-I mean I guess it’s not that surprising, we were only nine or ten at the time and it-it was only one summer... over a decade ago... You-you never really did call me by my name either.” Hinata says focusing on her twiddling fingers, her voice barely above a whisper, a pensive smile framing her lips at the memory.

There’s a long drawn out silence before Sasuke slowly asks, “...Tomato face?”

Hinata feels her face burn red at the old moniker, nodding. “Yeah...”

“Hyuuga, Hinata. Shit. Yeah. I do remember.”

The culminating tension finally releases from the moment and Hinata smiles at the black and white tiles breathing just a little bit easier.

He remembers.

“Wait... Did I hear you call her a tomato?” Naruto returns with a mildly amused Shikamaru in tow, handing Hinata her drink, and looks between the pair completely intrigued.

~~~

It didn’t take long for the word to spread that Hinata and Sasuke were childhood friends and everyone congregated into the small-ish kitchen asking curious questions.

It also didn’t take long for everyone to lose interest when Naruto nudged Hinata and started grilling her for embarrassing details of what a prepubescent Sasuke was like, earning him a surly glare. Hinata shyly shrugged saying, “I-I don’t really remember, it was a long time ago.”

Safe to say -- Naruto didn’t buy it, but surprisingly didn’t press further, and the group dispersed, leaving them to reacquaint.

The conversation between them after that was unfortunately still quite awkward, thankfully, Hinata wasn’t entirely to blame.

They exchanged small talk, Hinata mentions that she actually works at Heaven’s Little Corner and was just coming off her shift early when she ran into him the other day, and Sasuke talks about going to school and getting a Bachelor's degree in Business and how he focused on E-commerce after graduation. Overall, their -- re-connecting -- consisted of the typical pleasantries involved in catching up, and Hinata couldn’t distinguish if she was disappointed or relieved when their conversation came to a lull and she couldn’t think of anymore pointless verbiage to drag it along.

What she really wanted was to reminisce over hot days on the beach, collecting tiny crabs to occupy the sandcastles they built, and how Hinata had found sand in her hair days after the event. She wanted to talk about ice-cream and food fights and sneaking out to gaze at the stars in the night sky way past their bedtime, and how they pondered if aliens exist.

“I think the universe is too big for there not to be something out there somewhere.”

She remembers Sasuke saying, thoughtfully looking up.

“I-I think you’re an alien.”

She said back, earning her an indignant huff.

“Whatever tomato face.”

She wanted to talk about how simple everything was when they were kids, how she misses that naivety and how scary the world had revealed itself to be over the years.

Hinata was never good at making friends, even as a child, but she could still look back and she knew that Sasuke was one. He had been the last mark on her childhood that had made it a good one, the last moments she had to truly be a kid before she lost her mother, the truest love she had ever felt, forcing her to grow up.

Instead silence overtakes the kitchen and they both stare at their drinks unsure of what to say.

Sasuke isn’t how she remembers him at all. Yeah, he has the same face, just matured, and the same haughtiness, but the spark for life that had once inspired her seemed to be gone.

Which is an unfair thought to have, she admits, but she can’t stop herself from thinking it.

“Well I think it’s time to go on an adventure,” Naruto awkwardly offers.

“An adventure?” Hinata repeats, eyes growing wide.

“Naruto’s idea of an adventure is leaving the house and walking around the block.” Sasuke says rolling his eyes.

“Hey anything can be an adventure if you let it!”

~~~

It smells like damp grass and Hinata nearly jumps out of her skin as Naruto’s roar of triumph echo's off the surrounding buildings, catching the glow in the dark frisbee Kiba threw him. Sakura and Ino had joined them in their late-night excursion and Hinata can’t suppress the giddy giggles from watching them stumble about attempting athleticism when they are clearly four or five drinks deep.

She snaps a few photos and decides that she likes Naruto’s philosophy of approaching even the mundane aspects of life as an adventure.

This whole day certainly has felt like one.

Hinata puts her camera away, feels the chill in the October air, and pulls her scarf tighter. She casts a glance over at the park bench where Shikamaru was smoking a joint to see that he’s now casually chatting about... string theory? -- to Choji, who continues to nod his head like he understands.

Her trailing gaze then lands on Sasuke and-

Hinata immediately looks back towards the glowing air bound frisbee.

He was watching her - he looked suspicious - Hinata doesn’t know of what.

“Hey Sakura,” Hinata tries to call out, voice wavering, “it’s getting late, I think I-I should start heading home.”

That seems to put a halt on the physical activity for a moment, she’s then hugged by every frisbee player.

“It was nice meeting you Hinata.”

“Come back any time.”

“Yes please! We need more girls in our group, Sakura and I are severely outnumbered.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to walk you?” Sakura slurs slightly, pulling away from the tight embrace.

“I’ll be fine, thank you Sakura,” Hinata smiles at her newest friend and turns to leave but stops at the bench to wave goodbye at Choji and Shikamaru, earning her a warm smile and a lazy nod. She looks at Sasuke’s arms proudly crossed over his broad chest and says, “it was nice seeing you again Sasuke.” And makes her way down the busy street, casting one last glance behind her just in time to see Sakura jump on Ino piggyback style to catch the frisbee in an impressive display of drunken camaraderie.

She smiles wider to herself. Wow. Today was a good day. An Adventure! Even if seeing Sasuke again was really weird and awkward and not at all how she wished it could have gone, she still met a lot of new people – Sakura's friends are so nice! They made her feel right at home and didn’t make her feel too weird about being shy and -

“Hey, Hinata.”

Hinata startles, hearing the sound of her name accompanied by footsteps catching up and her breath hitches when she turns to see Sasuke slowing down next to her.

“S-Sasuke? What are you-”

“I’m going to walk you home,” he snorts like it’s obvious, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, “it’s late.”

“Oh,” Hinata hugs herself, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious and maybe even a little nauseous as they walk in silence, their steps in sync.

She can feel the heat of his gaze on her and Hinata makes a point to stare at the crispy autumn leaves on the pavement – yeah – Hinata has no idea what to make of this.

“You know it finally makes sense now, why I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

Hinata trips over nothing, “you what?”

Leaves. Look at the leaves. The beautiful burnt orange leaves. Just. Keep. Looking.

“At the coffee shop, there was something about you, I couldn’t get you out of my mind. Guess I thought you were familiar somehow.” Sasuke shrugs, with an air of nonchalance as they cross the street.

“Oh,” Hinata’s starting to feel warm, she doesn’t know if it’s from their quickening pace, the two drinks she’s had or how Sasuke is close enough for their shoulders to brush.

“It’s kind of crazy that we’d run into each other like this, after all these years.”

Hinata stops walking and Sasuke mirrors her. There’s something in his tone that catches Hinata off guard, something almost fond? Hinata looks back in the direction of his friends, they’re about five blocks away now.

Sasuke seemed... different than how he’s been all night -- more open somehow. Maybe he feels weird about their earlier interactions too, but didn’t feel comfortable acting this way in front of his friends? Sasuke’s always been a very private person, even as a child.

“Yeah it is,” Hinata bites her lip and throws him a timid fleeting smile, silently wishing she knew what was going through his mind.

“So, why did you come back to Konoha.”

“I-uh-” Hinata starts playing with the hem of her sweater and reminds herself it’s good to open up, “-wanted to figure out this life thing for myself – be independent - if my dad had his way, I’d never leave home or do anything that wasn’t part of his plan-” she tapers off, distracted by the approaching sound of music, a dumb smile spreads across her face when she sees an old skinny man on a sparkly bicycle riding past them on the road blaring ‘Dancing Queen’ from an oversized speaker he probably installed himself -- he seemed so – in the moment, like all that existed was him and the music filling the streets that he owned – Hinata silently mourns the missed opportunity of capturing that moment forever in a-

“You were saying,” Sasuke pokes her shoulder harder than necessary, bursting her from her reverie, and starts leading her down concrete stairs away from the bustling main road of the city, towards the waterfront.

“Right,” Hinata continues feeling energized from the random encounter and embarrassed from being caught drifting away in a daydream when they were in the middle of a conversation, “it was – uh - hard to leave my sister, but she encouraged me to go, that I should at least attempt to do the dream chasing thing.” Hinata pats her shoulder bag in reference to her camera. “I saved up some money and here I am, making it up as I go.”

“Hm, you always were snapping pictures everywhere you went.”

Their steps slow to a stop once they reach the cold metal railing where tourists gather during the day overlooking the docks, but it’s mostly quiet at this time of night.

It smells cold from the breeze and salty from the ocean. The lampposts must need changing because the only light is from the half-moon in the cloudless sky, casting them in dark shades of blue.

Hinata takes a deep breath observing the skyline and the colorful lights reflecting in the undulating ocean waves, then asks the question that’s been bothering her since their seemingly kismet reunion. “What do you remember after all this time?”

“I remember...” He trails off, Hinata doesn’t miss the sly edge in his tone. “That I had told you I’d marry you one day,” his voice is deep, almost gravely when he takes a slow playful step closer and Hinata swears her heart skips several beats noticing their breaths mixing in the cold air between them. “And that... you were technically my first kiss.” He says with a sarcastic snort, stepping back, and gesticulates somewhere behind them. “You can’t tell them about it though. Especially Naruto, the idiot would never let me live it down.”

Hinata blushes at the memory and attempts to mask her frown with an indignant pout, trying not to take the jeer personally.

Sasuke always did like to mess with her.

“You were my only kiss.” Hinata then whispers without thinking and regrets it. She immediately hates the implications -- like she’s some inexperienced-love-sick-twenty-something, who’s never gotten over her childhood crush.

Hinata sighs, briefly drowning in her own self-deprecating thoughts, gripping at the railing, eyes a passing ship, and pretends she can’t feel him studying her, surprised by the admission.

“What do you remember?” He asks back, finally breaking the silence.

She bites her lip, thinking, a rush of memories flashing one by one, settling on their goodbye -- her sobbing because she had to move away to a new city thousands of miles away that had special doctors who could treat her mother, how Sasuke was speechless and could only squeeze her tight in the first and only hug they had ever shared.

She remembers how he always told her she should stand up for herself, even against him, and she remembers how sometimes when she was around, he’d bite his tongue, holding back petulant sneers.

There’s a small quirk to her lips when she softly says, “Looking back, I-I always thought that we brought out the best in each other.”

There’s another long silence and Hinata once again feels the heavy weight of his gaze examining her, he reaches out and she stiffens when he gently grips the base of her braid touching the bright pink flower there.

“Did Ino do this?” He quietly asks, and there something hidden in his voice that shifts the mood of their conversation, and he’s close again, close enough for their visible breaths to once again mix, his fingers trail down towards the tail end of her braid.

“Uh huh.” Hinata breathes, watching his fingers play with the tip of her strands.

“Why can’t you…” he starts to ask, unsure, but curious, “never mind.” He let’s go of the braid, huffing lightly in frustration and leans on the railing, looking out towards the roaring waves.

Hinata’s stunned by his sudden apprehension. "Why can’t I what?”

“I said never mind.”

“But… I- I want to know.”

“Why can’t you look at me?”

“Oh.”

Sasuke sighs, “you don’t have to answer.”

Hinata bites her lip hard, internally wincing. “I-it’s not just you it’s most people really.” She starts, racking her brain for the right words “- It’s -it’s embarrassing… Well everything is embarrassing but, I get anxious about nothing all the time? And looking at people. I don’t know. I get paranoid that they can hear my thoughts or something? Not that I’m thinking about anything weird, well sometimes I am… it’s easier when they’re not looking back at me... Anyways... I guess it’s just become a bad habit now…” she sighs and smiles bitterly at the mess that just flew out of her mouth. “So, to summarize, looking at people kind of sometimes really freaks me out?”

“I see,” Sasuke says, Hinata glances at his mouth, he’s smiling a little, it’s almost warm in an amused sort of way, which completely disarms her.

Hinata’s tongue feels dry, “uhm, do-do you ever feel anxious?”

“Never. I get annoyed or frustrated with people very easily though, which can be problematic, not that I care”

“I guess some things never change then.” Hinata teases gently.

Sasuke smirks, he seems ready to retort with a quip but retreats and opts for something entirely different, “are there things that help you with your anxiety?”

There’s something about the question that makes Hinata feel warm all over, she never really gets to talk about these kinds of things without it feeling like it would dampen the mood, but there’s surprisingly no judgement in his tone, he seems genuinely curious, which encourages her to open up some more, "I find different scents to be calming, so I wear whatever my current favorite essential oil is on my wrist every day and whenever I feel too overwhelmed,” Hinata begins to explain in a rush pulling her sleeve up to demonstrate and presents Sasuke her wrist, “I close my eyes, count down from ten and-” Hinata’s breath catches in her throat and her eyes fly open when Sasuke gently pulls her forward by the wrist and she feels the softness of his lips brush over her pulse, then draws in a slow breath to scent the fragrance she chose to wear that day, “...and... sniff.”

Oh goodness, is it getting hot out here? Because Hinata’s face feels like it’s about to burst into flames. Hinata debates pulling her arm back but is currently enraptured by the softest look she’s seen on the Uchiha’s face this evening.

This feels way too intimate, and Hinata thinks she likes it. Hinata thinks that maybe this is what’s been missing in her life. The feeling of being close to someone in more ways than just proximity. Is it possible she’s been physically and emotionally touch starved for years without realizing it?

That’s a thought that petrifies her. How sleeping on your basest human needs can become a habit, and you find yourself going through the trivial motions of existence, not bothering to search for more, for something that makes your heart sing, twist, and turn into itself the way that muscle pumping blood through her circulatory system at a quickening pace is doing right now.

“Lavender,” Sasuke murmurs against her wrist and his breath feels hot on her skin, Hinata struggles for breath when the sensation brings her back to the present moment and she realizes that she’s been staring directly into his darkened obsidian eyes, boring into hers and she finds herself unable to look away. A subtle look of achievement flashes through them when he softly asks, “you okay there?”

Is she dead? Is she imagining this? This whole situation with the soft touches coinciding with depressing epiphanies triggered by Sasuke smelling her suddenly seems completely absurd, and Hinata’s not sure she’ll be able to form a coherent sentence any time soon.

“I uh, uhm.” There’s definitely something wrong with Hinata’s voice when she attempts to speak.

“I think that...” Sasuke smoothly adjusts their hands to interlock their fingers and his hand feels so warm in hers, “you should go out with me.”

What is happening?

“No.”

Hinata kinda meant to say yes, but sure, no works too?

“What?”

“I mean, I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Hinata winces slightly. Gosh what is she even saying? Is this some sort of weird defense mechanism because she’s afraid of getting hurt?

Sasuke nods slowly, narrowing his eyes, “why not.”

Don’t you have to risk getting hurt to get anywhere in life that’s worth while?

“I-I don’t know.”

“Hn.” Sasuke breaks eye contact and lets their holding hands fall. Hinata reels at the loss of warmth. He turns away from her and crosses his arms over the railing and looks out towards the dark rhythmic waves of the ocean. Hinata worries her bottom lip between her teeth as she studies the man before her. The moonlight is hitting the sharp angles of his face just perfect, and Hinata’s in awe. He’s all grown up now, and by default that means Hinata is too. Yet, here they are, the oldest they’ve been, and still the youngest they will ever be.

Nostalgia floods through Hinata’s system, deciding to grab the moment instead of letting it pass. She’s not sure when she pulled the camera out of her bag, but the flash went off before she understood that she was taking a picture.

Sasuke jumps slightly at the flash and is pulled from his brooding thoughts, shooting her a puzzled glare.

“Sorry, that was kind of weird of me. I just – I just thought you-you looked erm... nice in the moonlight?”

A bewildered look flashes across Sasuke’s face before a small smile begins to form and he laughs! He actually, genuinely laughs while shaking his head in what appears to be disbelief.

The only thing Hinata can do is smile sheepishly distracted by how handsome he looks when he lets go of his composure, the light in his eyes makes him look younger, like the Sasuke she knew all those years ago.

Hinata wonders if any of his friends get to see him like this.

He looks down at the pavement, shoulders still shaking, smile still present and pinches the bridge of his nose while taking in a slow breath and on his exhale, he reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, unlocks it, hands it over and says, “give me your number.”

Hinata tentatively obliges, pulling open the add new contact page, filling in the blanks then handing it back. Sasuke starts typing something in his phone and asks. “Do you work Sunday?”

“Uhm, yes?”

Hinata’s phone buzzes, when retrieving it from her bag she sees a text from an unknown number.

>> I’m going to come by after your shift and I'm taking you out. Don’t even bother using your mouth to respond.

Hinata feels her fingers tingling and tries to open her mouth to speak, closes it, bites her lip to try and stifle her giggles and resists the urge to slap herself in the face for acting like a complete airhead.

She pushes her fears aside one more time tonight...

And takes the damn dive.

<< Okay <3

__________________________

AN2: Wow, okay. A month later and I have the second part to this little story. This is the first time that I’m posting something I didn’t just throw together in one sitting. I’ve also never posted anything that was longer than 1200 words and it’s unexpectedly a little nerve-wracking??? OKAY SO, I guess there’s going to be one last chapter and it’s going to be like 90% SasuHina interactions? And spoiler alert they’re finally going to make-out. I have this SasuHina headcannon where they’re both private people who generally keep to themselves -- so people think they’re a boring couple, but when they’re alone together it’s like they’re in their own little world, and that’s the dynamic I’m looking forward to exploring in the final part. I’m not sure when it’s going to be up since I have a bunch of other stuff I need to work on so it depends on how the inspo hits me, but I do have plenty of fun ideas!

#sasuhina #sasuhina oneshot #sasuhina fanfic #sasuhinafanfiction #hinata #sasuke #naruto #mystuff #Hinata hyuuga #hinata fanfic

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sakura-blossom28 · 4 years

Text

Heartbroken

All fixed! Thank you to everyone who has read and left encouraging words, they’re really helping! Hope everyone likes the direction of the story. My goal is just to write about how I wish to find happiness one day and just projecting my thoughts out there! Let me know what you think!

Part 1 / Part 2 / Sakura hadn’t felt this awake in a while. She was excited about starting her new kickboxing class today with Temari and Hinata. Last night was non-stop laughing between the three of them. Sakura was finally starting to get back her appetite. For the months since the breakup, her eating habits were all over the place. One minute she feels so sick she could barely eat, the next she is scarfing down food as if her life depended on it. Last night was good for her. She felt closer to Temari even though they had just met, but she felt a true genuine feeling about her.

Things were feeling okay. Sakura got up at 8 AM to get ready for her new class. They had to get there early to fill out some forms and pay for their class. The gym was pretty close to where Sakura worked, so if she liked it enough she could go right after and not have to go home first. That was the hard part for Sakura if she went home she would never leave her house.

Today she wore her favorite maroon workout pants, a white t-shirt with a little cartoon cactus on it, and her usual black running shoes. Sakura looked in her mirror in her room and decided to put up her hair. Normally she liked to keep her pink hair down, but now that it was almost touching her shoulders she could make a real ponytail. She thought back to when she was much younger and had long beautiful hair. Sakura missed braiding her hair, it felt like forever. It made her feel soft and delicate, but she hadn’t felt like that in a while.

Clearing her mind she looked at the time and she was ready to go. Sakura already felt her adrenaline rising as she quickly drove to the gym. When she pulled up it was a simple brick building. The gym’s name was simply called Power. A bit intimidating, but Sakura did want to get strong. Figuring Hinata and Temari would pull up any second she decided to go inside to get started on the paperwork.

Walking into the gym, Sakura did not expect the design to be the way it was. The front desk was very clean and organized with all silver detailing matching the equipment behind the desk. Being early on a Saturday morning Sakura expected the place to be bustling with grunting men and women pumping iron to their heart’s content. Instead, it was just a handful of people just calmly going about their routines. They weren’t super muscly like everyone thinks a typical gym has, but just average people. That made Sakura feel better.

Nowhere in sight was any punching bags. There were two doors next to each other in the very back, and two doors side by side on her left. Maybe locker rooms? Surprisingly enough it was a very calm atmosphere. This completely relaxed Sakura of any lingering fear that she had in the back of her mind. The front desk attendant smiled at her kindly and welcomed her in.

“Hello! My name is Tenten. Welcome to Power. Are you here to join one of our classes?” she said still continuing to smile. Tenten clearly used the privileges of her job, because she was fit. She had deep brown eyes and dark brown hair styled as two buns sitting on her head, a style Sakura always wanted to try but could never pull off. Maybe she was teaching the women’s class, Sakura wouldn’t mind working with her.

“Yes, I’m here to sign up for the kickboxing class with my friends,” Sakura said offering a smile of her own.

“Great here are the forms while you wait for them!” Tenten said reaching under the counter to grab a printed out form. Sakura thanked her and sat down at a small table in the front to fill out her information. If Sakura had been paying attention she might have noticed Tenten taking out her phone to snap a quick picture of her and start frantically texting on her phone to her work group-chat.

Tenten: Hey Gaara, is this the girl your sister was telling me about last night??

Gaara: I have no idea why Temari is making such a big deal out of this, but yeah that must be her. How many girls have pink hair like that?

Tenten: She’s pretty cute! You better get down here pretty fast, I think I hear Lee coming…

Gaara: What does that have to do with anything?

Neji: That must be the girl who Lee wouldn’t shut up about for weeks. He was introduced to her by Naruto.

Lee: Don’t let her leave!! I’ll be there in 10 minutes!!!

Gaara: I’ll be down in five.

Tenten snickered to herself. Finally some workplace drama! She totally remembered this was the girl that Lee was obsessed with for a while. She heard Sakura turned him down nicely and was kind enough to listen to his crazy ramblings for one whole night. Tenten thought it would be good for Gaara to start seeing someone. Maybe he wouldn’t be around the gym so much bossing them around. Thankfully Neji was level headed and ran the books for them, or the place would already be in the ground.

Normally girls would fall over any time they caught a glimpse of Gaara and he could not be bothered by them. And this girl who he seemed to barely know was getting him out of his apartment, very strange. Temari made it a point to say that Sakura didn’t even see Gaara’s face when they “met” so she had to watch her face very closely and report back to Temari. Hearing the door open Tenten was ready to see her redheaded boss, but instead, she saw a blur of green rush past her towards the table that Sakura was sitting at. She was too shocked to see that Gaara was coming in right behind it.

“Sakura!! It is so good to see you again! I am so glad that you have decided to join our gym! I am most looking forward to you improving your skills so you may join my advanced class! If you ever need any personal help…” a voice said right in her ear.

Sakura knew the voice immediately. She only knew one person who could give Naruto a run for his money for talking that fast and had no concept for personal space. She peeked up from her forms to see a bright smile attached to bushy dark eyebrows and an unfortunate bowl cut.

“Oh hi, Lee…” Sakura started with a weak smile, but before she had to continue the conversation a deep stern voice broke her train of thought.

“Alright Lee back off. Don’t go scaring the new recruits like that,” Gaara said as he made his way over. Sakura looked up to meet cool jade eyes somewhat like her own. This was Gaara. His eyes were what was drawing Sakura in, she couldn’t place where she had seen his eyes before since she had never seen his face before. His face was clear of any emotion, but the tone of his voice wasn’t harsh and he didn’t give off the vibe of being a gym buff. He really didn’t have any defining features except being very handsome, but as Sakura was searching his face she noticed a tattoo on the corner of his forehead. What a strange place for a tattoo, she thought to herself. Not wanting to be rude she gave Gaara a small smile of thanks as Lee slunk away behind the counter next to a snickering Tenten.

Gaara turned back to Sakura and asked, “Do you need anything before we start? I’m sorry my sister is running late, it’s her trademark.”

“No, I think I’m alright, I just need some gloves to borrow.”

“Alright you can follow me then,” he said as he started to walk towards the back of the gym. Sakura got up trying not to look at the smiling Lee that seemed to follow her every move. As they moved through the gym, she noticed that one of the doors led to the training room and the other was an office.

“Typically people bring their own gloves, but since I knew you guys were coming I brought some of my old gloves for you and Hinata. They’re pretty worn in so it shouldn’t feel too bad,” Gaara said to her as he was searching through a big duffle bag. “Here these look like a good fit for you.”

He handed her a well-worn pair of brown gloves. With Sakura having smaller hands she was surprised at how well they fit.

“How old are these gloves? You must have been a kid when you used these!” Sakura said gently hitting the gloves together. For a first impression and talking to a guy this good looking Sakura thought she was doing pretty well.

“Yeah, you’re actually right,” Gaara said with a small smile on his face. His face completely changed when he was smiling. Uh oh. Sakura could already feel her face heating up. Not what she needed. No crushes. Plus he was Temari’s brother! That made him off-limits right? But if she did think about it, wouldn’t it be better just to have a crush on Gaara and not do anything about it because she couldn’t?

You’re getting way too ahead of yourself as usual. Slow down you LITERALLY just met the guy. What if he’s a total jerk? Talking to herself always helped Sakura think and the voice in the back of her mind was usually right. But he went out of his way to bring old gloves for them when he didn’t have to.

As Sakura was thinking, really talking to herself, Gaara noticed the look of concentration on her face. He knew that look very well. He too would talk to himself in his mind and think no one was watching. No one had ever noticed before because he learned to control his face while he thought, but clearly, no one had told Sakura about this tip. She actually looked kinda cute while she was arguing with herself. That thought shocked Gaara. Normally he didn’t notice girls, especially one with pink hair and delicate looking. But who was he to judge a book by its cover? His whole life people did that to him and he promised himself he wouldn’t do it to others.

Before they knew it they were both staring at each other lost in their own thoughts. At the sound of the door opening to more students walking in did they look away. Neither one of them noticed the slight blush that was growing on each of their faces. Throwing it up to the room being too hot.

“I recommend a spot towards the middle in the second row. You’ll be able to see pretty well without having to be right in the front,” Gaara said turning to pick up his duffle bag.

“Thanks!” Sakura said with a real smile, it felt nice chatting with Gaara. It felt like progress being able to look at a guy and actually have a conversation. Maybe a little crush wouldn’t be so bad? But what if he already has a girlfriend? That nagging thought would be pushed into the back of her mind for now, “Would you happen to know who’s teaching the class?”

“Don’t worry it’s not Lee,” Gaara said with humor in his voice. That made Sakura look at him. He did give off the impression of being super stoic but in the few minutes of talking that didn’t seem to be the case.

“Not that he isn’t nice, I don’t think I’d be able to keep up with him,” Sakura said with a small chuckle.

“Don’t worry I’ll go easy on you guys since you’re new. Don’t want to scare you off too quickly,” Gaara said as he started to smirk. With that, he took his bag and walked to the front of the room, leaving Sakura shocked right where she stood.

XxX

Hinata and Temari eventually showed up and the class started. Gaara gave a small introduction to a group of about 10 people in the room. Not only had Gaara been boxing for most of his life, but he owned the gym! Sakura felt her jaw drop a bit when he mentioned that and she could hear Temari snickering next to her.

Gaara went over the basics for them and it was pretty simple, kicking and punching. Now just to do it a million times to create muscle memory to do it perfectly. Then increase your speed and make a routine out of it. Piece of cake. The class was only an hour and Sakura could not remember the last time she worked this hard. She could not perfect her moves in a single class. Her arms and legs were jello by the time they were finished. As they practiced Gaara walked around the small room to help everyone with their form.

He purposely told Sakura about the spot in the middle so that he could keep an eye on her progress without being too noticeable. Plus he knew Temari would have been mad if she was in the back of the room. Sakura was actually doing pretty well for just picking up a pair of gloves for the first time. She was a little stiff, but that was to be expected. He started to walk towards her punching bag.

“You’re swing is a little off. Try keeping your arm straight and pull it right back. Arching your arm is for a different day,” Gaara said after watching Sakura give a few punches.

She looked up, face flushed bright pink from the effort she was giving. He was happy to see she perked up at the sound of his voice. Lowering her arms and shaking them out, Sakura nodded at him and tried to do as he said. After a few swings, she turned to him with a bright smile on her face. She had a brilliant smile and her eyes were bright and alight compared to how she looked while she was going through his sketchbook. He returned her smile with a small one of his own.

“Alright everyone, that’s enough for today. Go take a walk to cool off. Sign up for another class if you’re interested. Thanks for coming,” Gaara called out dismissing the class. Everyone let out an exhausted sign with a few laughs.

Sakura sat down hard on the ground out of breath. She couldn’t remember ever being this tired, but she felt really good. She would definitely be signing up for more classes. Maybe Gaara would be teaching more classes…

“So what did you think?” Temari asked the two of them once they all caught their breath.

“That was amazing! If I didn’t think it would kill me I’d come every day!” Sakura said with a laugh.

“And would that have anything to do with the teacher?” Temari asked with a sly smile on her face. Sakura was surprised at the question, but Temari seemed to be the teasing type.

“Temari that’s your brother! Plus he probably has a girlfriend or something right?”

“Oh, so you’re interested hmm? Are stiff redheads your type Sakura? I can vouch for him he’s warm and fuzzy on the inside!!” At this point, Sakura was bright pink again from Temari’s teasing. And of course, Gaara chose this time to walk up to them.

“Temari are you being annoying again? Leave Sakura alone,” he reached out a hand to help Sakura up, “Just ignore her that’s what the rest of us do.” The simple gesture touched her.

“Oh haha, you’re so funny, brother,” Temari said while rolling her eyes, “Hey I know! Since it’s Saturday we should all go out tonight! C’mon, it’ll be fun. We can invite your whole crew! What do you guys say?”

Sakura was quiet at first waiting for someone else to respond, but it seemed everyone was looking at her to answer. Strange, normally she didn’t make the choices like this, but it kind of felt nice.

“I’m pretty exhausted so I’m not too sure how much fun I can handle, but there’s a bar by my house that is pretty relaxing and has a lot of seating!” Sakura suggested. Hinata and Temari seemed to be on board with the idea. Gaara was walking away, but Temari called out to him.

“Gaara you’re coming right?” He seemed to pause but turned to look at them. He seemed to be looking at each of them but lingered on Sakura to see what she would do. Sakura smiled, she wouldn’t mind if Gaara came, it would be a good chance to get to know him better.

“Fine I’ll go,” he said as he turned back around and walked out into the gym.

“Finally! I’ve been trying to get him to come out for weeks. And it’s all thanks to you Sakura,” Temari said and patted her on the shoulder. What was that supposed to mean? She never did get an answer as they walked out after Gaara.

“Tonight will be a great night you’ll see!” was all Temari said, giving Hinata a wink. Oh, but did she have plans for tonight...

Part 4

#Sabaku No Gaara #gaasaku #Sakura Haruno #gaara x sakura #naruto #modern au #temari #Hinata Hyuga #fanfiction #fanfic #sakura fanfic #writing #fan fic writing

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sexyshakespeare · 5 years

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Sasuke comes home - Part 2: Pink hair

I didn’t go into the combini closest to me, instead I decided to take a walk through the village. I had a lot of time on my hands now anyway. There were new shops selling kuraama paintings and merchandise. Man, had the times changed. I wondered what my official title or job description was to the people of Konoha, or if they were even aware of my existence. I’d prefer it if my name faded away into history, that was a good end for me. There was a gloominess settling over me that seemed to fill the street as I ambled along, my hand in my pocket. Before I knew it, I found myself circling around the hospital entrance. Clenching my teeth, I had to fight the impulse to walk away and put it off till later. Sakura was a medical kunoichi now. She had a busy day. The last thing I wanted was to interrupt something important like a surgery by declaring my sudden arrival.

I eyed the clock on the wall in the waiting room, it was almost 5. She should be getting off about now, right? The receptionist was looking at me funny. She probably knew who I was, or worse, she thought I needed medical attention because of my arm. “Ano..”, I heard her mumble. I looked at her and spoke, “I’m not a patient. I’m waiting for someone-” “Sasuke san, Sakura san is just getting done with her last patient of the day.” I nodded awkwardly. Sasuke san. What would I say to her? I’d have to prepare myself. I could start with the usual- How are you, how’s work- Is Tsunade working you harder than usual? Should I call you sensei now? I smirked at that last thought. She had always been smart, probably smarter than I was in school. But this was a whole new level- Doctor Sakura. I ought to congratulate her on her profession. What would I say next? I could tell her I’ll count on her for any medical emergencies I might have.. “Sasuke-kun??” My face froze. I stood up to see the pink haired Haruno Sakura standing across the hall, sling bag and all. Her doctor’s apron was peeking out of the bag. She still had white shoes on.

“Tadaima”, I said sheepishly. I don’t know why I chose to say that to her, but it seemed appropriate somehow. She’d been waiting for me to come home, her more than anyone.

She crossed the space between us, smiling at me as she did, her gaze not leaving my eyes. She looked like she would cry any minute. I really did not want her to cry. “Should we go?”, I said, ushering her to the door, watching the receptionist from the corner of my eye- she seemed to be paying close attention to our drama at the moment. I hated that. Why couldn’t people just mind their own business. Sakura was turning redder and redder by the minute. I can’t figure out why, for the life of me. I let go of her arm and slowed my pace to match her’s. Glancing at her from time to time was all I could do, as we walked side by side. She was tearing up, but not saying anything. I couldn’t bear her crying like that, but I had no clue what to say to her. I didn’t know where to start. “How’s work at the hospital? Tsunade working you hard?”, I said to the air in front of me. Sakura looked down at her feet and murmured, “Yeah- it’s great..” I grabbed the inside of my pocket furiously. This was going horribly. I was terrible at this after all. I shouldn’t have come. I should’ve let Naruto handle it..

“She’s driving me just hard enough! It’s a big deal to be head of the hospital you know? I can’t be allowed to take it lightly!”

I looked at her face. She was chirpy and bright faced all of a sudden. There was a big, proud smile plastered across her little face. A small, unimpressive smile in comparison was spreading across mine, when Sakura looked at me and said, “Okairinasai..” This time, my everything froze. How much confidence and emotional endurance could she possibly have. I found myself getting flustered, so I tore my gaze away from her’s just in time to see the tsukemen shop on our right. “Do you want some? You like this right?” I didn’t know if I was right. This was a memory from our genin years together. “Yes I do! You remember Sasuke-kun..”, she was blushing again. It wasn’t a big deal to remember something like that. I held her wrist and tugged her towards the shop just so we’d get there faster, immediately regretting the gesture. Every time I touched her, she turned beet red and looked like she was choking on a fish bone. It made me feel uncomfortable. “I don’t know what’s good here- get one for me?”, I said. Sakura ordered for us both like she had done it a million times before. We sat at the counter silently, just feeling the intensity of each other’s presence. I looked at her sideways, wanting to apologize to her for all the times I had let her down, wanting to tell her she doesn’t have to forgive me or be this happy to be eating with me. She didn’t have to be this loving and caring of someone like me. Sakura turned to me, her green eyes solid and unwavering, she said, “You’re going to ask me for anything you need help with. Even if you’re just bored, you’re going to tell me. Right?” I didn’t make eye contact with her, but instead looked at the poster behind her, taking in the color and composition. She smelled of cherry blossom, like her name suggests. “I don’t want to bother you Sakura. You have a lot on your plate. You just take care of yourself- I’ll be fine..” She looked annoyed suddenly. There was definitely a hint of annoyance in her face as the tsukemen arrived. Maybe it was too spicy? I slurped up my noodles, pleasantly surprised at how good my bowl was. “Is yours as good as this?” She looked at me, still annoyed, “There you go again. Sasuke-kun. You’re not bothering me.. I want to help. Please don’t hold back.” I turned back to my bowl, scared of that look on her face. “Hai..”, I answered. I saw her smile coming back. I was defeated. I mean, maybe she could get me soap when I wanted, that’s not a lot to ask. I didn’t have to refuse her help entirely, I just would stay out of her way overall. Sakura really could be overbearing sometimes. I paid for our food when we were done.

As we walked out into the street again, I struggled to think of something to say to her without making things upsetting or serious. My eyes brightened as I thought of the perfect thing. “Hey- Naruto and Hinata getting married was pretty nice right. She always had a thing for him-”, I looked at her and continued, “How was the wedding, since I couldn’t make it..” Sakura looked sullen now, though the words that came out of her mouth didn’t match her vibe, “It was so beautiful. They’re really cute together..” I swallowed to get rid of the lump in my throat. This was getting more and more awkward. We were walking towards her apartment complex. She had moved here from her parent’s place it seemed. She turned towards me as we approached her block and smiled widely. Then she said the most surprising thing, “Sasuke-kun. I know you feel indebted to me or that you need to be nice to me. You don’t have to do that.” Her eyes were clear, her voice firm. “You don’t have to hang out with me to keep me happy. I won’t bother you anymore. You just.. try to have a good life here in Konoha, please.” I stared at her, dumbfounded. That’s exactly what I was going to say to her. She looked down at her shoes and then back up again at me, her pink hair getting in her eyes. I really wanted to touch it. But that would make her uncomfortable and flustered so I didn’t. Sakura turned around to climb up the stairs. “Wait-”, I pleaded. She turned back around, looking severely taken aback. Did she think I’d stay silent through all of that? Probably. I had been no less than a revenge seeking machine before. The emotions struggled to be processed and leak out, even now. “I- Sakura, you don’t bother me.. I-”, the words started to form. “I don’t want you to waste your time on me-”

I wanted to beg her to stay away from me, to not depress herself further, to find somebody else to care for like she did me. But my eyes just took in her face, so earnest and small. She was such an amazing woman. Her cute, pink exterior wouldn’t give away how strong or talented she was at all. She didn’t deserve to be running around after me like this, even if she did love me. I saw her give me a small smile, a resignatory one. This was it. She’d stop calling me or leaving messages with anyone for me. I would stop meeting her too. She’d find a way to move on from this mess. My eyes just wouldn’t leave her’s now. I don’t know why. She seemed confused. I was confused too, I understand. I felt a sudden urge to ask her to stay. I felt ashamed for feeling that, and looked down to my feet. My heart was pounding, as I tried to get the words out. I was scared. It was strange to be following my last sentence with this. “If it’s not too much trouble- do you- would you like to help me..” I looked up at her, flustered at my own words, searching for the end of my sentence, “-set up my place. It’s all empty right now.. and um- I need to stock up on the kitchen-” Yes, people did that. I needed to stock up on my kitchen. She looked at me disbelievingly. She just stood there with a disgusted, sarcastic look on her face. But then she said, “Do you need me to cook for you? I’ll bring you a week’s worth of food if you want..” I shrugged and grasped at words again. Her eyes were really boring into me now, for the truth it seemed. “No-I can cook. I just- you know- I can make food for us-”

Why am I saying this.

“Um.. sasuke-kun..” Don’t call me that. This is the worst time to be saying that kun thing.

I was blushing now, I could feel it. My cheeks were hot. “Why don’t you bring me something for the flat- It really needs some help right now. I’ll get started on dinner for us before you come- Saturday. You’re off early on Saturday?” “Sasuke-kun! You really don’t have to-” “I want to.” We looked at each other for a few minutes, her searching, me trying my best to build a wall in front of my face that she could not penetrate. I think I did a pretty good job, she still looked confused. I was certain that she’d seen me blushing but that hadn’t thrown her off at least. Sakura still looked like she didn’t really believe me, but she said, “Okay- I’ll bring some things for you. You like cats don’t you?” She smirked at me, knowingly. My mouth opened slightly in a laugh as my body relaxed. “Yes I do..”

“Alright, I’ll see you Saturday- at 8..9..?” “9 is good. I’ll have something cooked by then”, I smiled slightly, confidently. “Bye then. Sleep well- you earned it, sensei-” She laughed hearing that, a brilliant clear laugh and began climbing up the stairs.

I walked away from the block, steering towards my shitty little apartment. Good, she’d bring me little cat posters then. And she’d be coming home for dinner at 9 pm this Saturday, what had I done.

I was sweating when I reached my flat. This was the worst way to end the conversation. I asked her to my home, and I said I’d cook for her. What have I done. I looked around the flat, at the depressing blank walls and the dusty kitchen. That at least, the Sasuke Welcoming Team hadn’t wasted their time with. Probably a bunch of genins after all, no big deal. I lied in my bed, staring at the ceiling. Sakura would be coming over. I have to cook her something really nice. I want to do something nice for her.

I smiled a little to myself in the dark. I said out loud, “I’ll cook her your roast, Itachi. Forgive me if I fuck it up and order in from Wagamama.” I had distinct memories of Itachi going crazy in our kitchen with 4 course meals. If I was anything like my brother, and I knew I was, I could pull off this dinner for us too. I had cooked for myself before, but it was hardly a meal worth sharing. Orochimaru’s hole had been my home for most of my life. I would have to adapt to the luxury of having a proper kitchen with an oven and other amenities. Well, I was a fast learner.

I felt some excitement creeping up on me. I’d do something nice for Sakura. I’d make her happy, for a change. I hope it would make her happy.

I turned over in bed, smelling a hint of cherry blossom suddenly. I saw her hair fall over her eyes and watched her finger it out of the way, as I drifted off to sleep.

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bitternessbitesback · 5 years

Text

Birds Of A Feather

AO3 FFN

Summary: It was funny, really, someone like her dating someone like him. She was a bright and preppy whilst he was a cynical pessimist. People always say opposites attract, so who are they to disagree?

Pairing: Sasori/Sakura

The two are like night and day, dark and light, yin and yang. One would think neither Sasori nor Sakura would ever be able to put aside their differences long enough to even think about dating, and yet here they were. Sitting in the mall food court doing just that. Sasori's friendly can recall just how many times the red haired man has lamented on and on about how he despises shopping despite the fact he went constantly with the pink haired medic. Never once complaining when his girlfriend drags them into the fifteenth store to try on a multitude of items only to either walk out with nothing or just a couple things. It was a well known fact that while Sasori acted patient, he was not a patient man. His friends honestly had no clue how the man could put up with the lively and talkative woman until they saw how soft his eyes seemed to get whenever she was around. Somehow, in spite of his introverted nature, the man always spent as much time as possible with the extroverted pinkette.

Much like Sasori's friends, Sakura's friends also didn't quite understand how the two were dating. Ino could list five different times off the top of her head when the medic would burst into their shared apartment, annoyed at something a kid in her art class had done, only to find out that it was Sasori all along years later. Although the blonde was grateful to no longer have her messy best friend living with her, Ino couldn't help but worry about the other woman. Sasori was mean, cold, calculating, and incredibly cunning. The blue eyes woman is also convinced his morals are all out of wack regardless of Sakura constantly saying otherwise. Ino could tell, despite her preconceived notions of the man, that he made the green eyed girl much happier than the blonde had ever seen.

So in spite of some people's curious gazes, the two continued to enjoy themselves, laughing as they munched on mediocre mall food. Though Sakura would never admit it out loud, she too couldn't believe how the both of them have been together so long. Most men she dated got intimidated by her thriving career, fiery temper, and the fact that 9 times out of ten she was stronger than them. Sasori never once gave off that vibe and always told her how proud he was that she reached a new fitness goal or got a promotion at work. Those aren't the only reason's though for the unwelcome thoughts lingering in the back of her mind.

Sakura was very messy, something Sasori absolutely couldn't stand, and they used to get into loads of arguments when they first moved in together. Since then she's actually gotten better about not just leaving her clothes lying around and actually doing the dishes once in a while. It's actually a little funny how he pretends to be annoyed when she puts her laundry in with his and he tells her to knock it off but does it anyway.

Whenever she thinks about how little they have in common, she just laughs because there is so much that they do have in common, but sometimes she thinks they really are like yin and yang. For example, Sasori is such an art snob sometimes and even though she took an art class for college, she just doesn't get what he gets into arguments with Deidara for. After all, art is art, right? Wrong apparently as Sakura found out once as they both started spouting nonsense at her when she was trying to calm them down. Another example is how she is literally the definition of a prep/jock, and he is the embodiment of an angsty emo (eyeliner and all that Sakura (not so)secretly thinks is hot). And although he is taller than her, she can hold her liquor better, which you would never know since she gets into shenanigans more often due to two certain blonde friends of hers.

Despite their differences though, they really do have somethings in common. They can both cook. for instance, even if his food always tastes better. They're both interested in medicine, albeit different sides of medicine. They both get jealous easily even though they trust each other 100%. She likes working out and he likes watching her work out, definitely not because she gets all sweaty and her hair is messed up, no way no how. Sasori loves it when she walks around their house wearing his shirts as does she. Both of them also really enjoy cuddling with Sakura as the big spoon holding Sasori while she plays with her hair. He loves drawing her and she loves that he thinks she's worthy of being drawn.

Honestly there are as many differences as there are similarities between them, but the one that really brings them together is the fact that they're both only children. They understand what it's like to grow up wanting for siblings and finding them in your obnoxious blond friends instead. Sure they could focus on the differences that shouldn't make their relationship work like so many others, but why would they? Yeah, they could break up right now, or even tomorrow because of them, but if they only focused on the negatives that's exactly what would happen. After all, regardless of whether or not their relationship lasts, Sakura is going to continue to mooch off of her boyfriend for his heavenly back massages.

"You about finished with your smoothie?" Sasori questioned, breaking the girl from her thoughts.

She took an extra large sip from her banana smoothie, a slurping sound coming from the straw letting them both know it was empty, while she raised one eyebrow up at him in response.

"Wow, Haruno, could've said 'no'." He teased in a sarcastic tone, "You don't have to be so dramatic."

"Oh as if I'm the dramatic one in this relationship," A scoff followed the end of her sentence as the pinkette stood up to throw their trash away.

"Nobody would be surprised." He retorted, grabbing her bags and following her lead.

"Just cause you've got them all fooled Red."

"Psh, whatever, you're the one who has everybody wrapped around her little finger."

"Oh are you jealous?"

"Hah! Of you? Never."

"I can see right through you sweetie, you're so jealous that Konan loves me more than you even though you've been friends longer."

"As if Haruno, I can't hold that against Konan or you for that matter since everyone who even comes within a five mile radius of you is immediately struck by cupid's bow."

The woman merely scoffs and shakes her head at the absurd notion, a light blush dusting her cheeks. Sasori knew just the right thing to say to make her feel like a schoolgirl again. Giving her a light, happy feeling in her chest as her heart beat a little too fast for her liking. The man in question simply places his arm around her shoulders and pull her closer to him as they continue walking past stores and out to the parking lot.

"We done for the day?" Sasori inquired.

"Yeah," Sakura replied thoughtfully, "I'm pretty sure we've got the prefect gifts for everybody as well as some cute outfits for me, of course."

"Of course." He joked back, looking down at her with nothing short of adoration in his eyes.

Sasori was not an overly affectionate man and he certainly did not like PDA. In general he was not even considered a loving man, in fact Sakura was the first real girlfriend he'd ever had. Of course he's dated girls before and slept around, but none of them ever made him feel anything. That was naturally before Sakura came running head first into his life, literally. She came barreling through the door of his art class on the first day of school and fell over herself trying to slow down so as not to run into him, but ultimately failing as they collided and their collective stuff fell to the ground with them. He was naturally annoyed with her, so he told her off, shocked when she decided to tell him off back. From then on he was intrigued by the energetic pink haired girl who's name he failed to catch.

Growing up in a small town, Sasori was used to all the woman being polite and meek, and obviously Sakura was anything but. She is wild and loud and snorts when she laughs too hard. Sakura Haruno is a spitfire and if the red haired man was being honest with himself, he quite enjoyed teasing her and watching as her cheeks turned red from anger, although he wasn't sure why. After all, he'd never felt anything for anybody before, so why on earth would him having feelings for her even make the 'top 20 reasons why he could do this list' in his head? He actually told his grandmother about the strange woman in his class during winter break and could not for the life of him realize why the old lady was suddenly on the floor laughing her pants off at him.

"How did I raise such an oblivious child?" She asked him once she finally stopped chortling, "How is it you are so observant when it comes to other people, yet so obtuse when it comes to yourself and your own emotions?"

"What on earth are you talking about old lady?" He was getting tired of this.

"Honestly kid," She wiped a tear from her eye and chuckled in disbelief, "I never thought I'd see the day you'd actually get a crush on someone."

"I don't have a crush on her. She's annoying and obnoxious and her sense of justice is overpowering!"

"Whatever you say dear." His Grandma Chiyo was starting to walk away.

"She can't even draw!" Laughs could be heard from the kitchen as he called after her, " She didn't even know what oil paints were until last week!"

Of course his grandmother was right, but Sasori wouldn't let the woman know that, despite the fact that the man introduced the two most important women in his life just after three short months of dating. Now here they are, going on six years, and he had never been happier in his entire life. At first Sasori was afraid of how much he cared about Sakura in the beginning and actually started to push the poor woman away. Could you blame him though? Here this seemingly perfect woman comes into his life, pulling his walls down brick by brick, and you expect him to not freak out? Especially one who wears her heart on her sleeve and seems to be everything he's not. However she was much smarter than she let on and refused to let Sasori shut her out. She actually came knocking on his door after the third day of silence and demanded to be let in. That was their first real fight and their combined tempers made it explosive. Somehow Sakura managed to calm down, which calmed him down, and they were able to have an actual progressive conversation as opposed to a screaming match, trying to force their beliefs on one another.

They've been going strong ever since and Sakura has proved over and over that his insecurities about their relationship are unfounded as she will always prove just how willing she is to work on their relationship together. She eases his anxieties and vise versa. Who cares if he's a morning person and she's not, or if he enjoys quiet nights in while she wants to go out? Though are trivial things that don't matter when one looks at the big picture. Sasori can feel the familiar weight in his right inside pocket, the small box bringing a comforting feeling to the otherwise apprehensive man.

"When are you going to get hitched?" His grandmother's voice rang in the back of his head as the memory of her words played over and over in his mind. She always asked that whenever they would visit, always making sure to pull the man aside.

Sasori always shrugged off the question, acting nonchalant about it. To be fair the ring has been sitting in his pocket for a little over two years now, but he never managed to find the right time. Sakura was constantly busy with her career and finishing off her last year of school, not to mention how she always had her friend dates every Thursday. Honestly the man took what he got when it came to what little free time the pinkette had, he was selfish like that. Was it wrong to want her all to himself though? He didn't think so, and Sakura didn't seem to mind either.

He coveted the nights when she was able to get off early and he could actually make her dinner, or their lunches together in his studio. He enjoyed being able to draw her sleeping form as the sun began to peek above the horizon and creating a halo effect on the woman. As an artist, his girlfriend was quite possibly the most exquisite thing he'd ever had the honor of bestowing his eyes upon, especially when she was resting as the tension left her shoulders and pink strands fell around and on her face.

Who cares if she makes him go hiking with her when he just wants to read a book? Her excuse is that she wants a workout buddy, but he knows she already has one. That just means she wants to spend time with him, and who is he to object? Really, everybody knows Sakura's the boss in their relationship anyway and he couldn't tell her no if he tried. Yeah he'll pretend to make a show of it whenever she asks him to go on a new trail with her, but that doesn't mean he doesn't already have his shoes on before the words even left her mouth. Plus, if she makes him go hiking then that means he gets to drag her to every boring art show he has to go to and show her off. The other people are superficial at those events anyway and somehow his girlfriend is the master of small talk, and he really thinks she's an angel at least fifty times a day.

The red haired man probably couldn't have fallen harder for anybody else if he tried. Sasori was looking forward to having her yell at him for using all the hot water cause his showers took too long again, or how they can simultaneously sit in comfortable silence for hours on end and talk non-stop. Their conversations are enlightening and she forces him to look at things from a new perspective, her optimism rubbing off on him. Sakura Haruno is a storm and he is looking forward to each new day alongside her.

"What do you think of Akasuna no Sakura?" Sasori asked to woman beside him as they finally made it to their car, the sun beginning to set.

The question seemed to catch her off guard for a second as she simply looked at him before replying, "That's okay, but what about Sasori Haruno?"

He shrugged and they got in the car and he started it, looking at his girlfriend from the corner of his eye.

"I don't mind it." The red haired man told her casually.

"Oh really now?" She inquired.

"Yeah." The radio played quietly as he waited for Sakura's reply.

"Did you just propose to me?"

"I suppose I did."

This caused a laugh to rip through the woman's throat as Sasori looked at her quizzically, trying to pay attention to the cars driving around them, a slight annoyance flowing through him. Was the thought of marrying him really that funny? He was about to tell her off but then she started speaking.

"About time."

"What? What does that mean?"

"You know what it means Red."

"How long have you been waiting for me to propose?"

"How long have you had that ring in your pocket?"

They were almost home now, but that made Sasori do a double take. She knew? "You knew?"

"Of course I did, you started acting a little weird when I wore your jackets and always insisted on checking the pockets first."

They pull into their garage, park, and he just looks at her for a minute. Really looks at her. Takes in her short pink hair that's no longer a chin length and to her shoulders, her emerald eyes that always had a mischievous twinkle in them, her straight nose that was just a little crooked from being broken although you couldn't tell unless she told you. She gives him her sweet smile that he knows never reached her eyes in the beginning of their rocky friendship, but is delighted at the fact that it almost always does now. Sakura was a firecracker and now she'd be his firecracker forever.

Slowly he takes the ring box out of his pocket and her eyes follow the movement. Sasori opens it and takes her hand in his as she waits for him to speak those life changing words, both still in the car as one of them holds her breath. Meanwhile he takes a deep breath to steel his nerves, all the words he wanted to say, all the things she means to him, have suddenly vanished from his brain. It doesn't matter though, he can always tell her in his vows and every single day for the rest of his life if she wanted him to.

"Will you, Sakura Haruno, do me the pleasure and honor of becoming my wife?"

"Of course," She replies with a sigh, letting him put the ring on her finger before pulling him into a kiss.

#fanfiction #my writing #sasosaku #sasori #sasori of the red sand #chiyo #sakura haruno #naruto #same age au #real world au #bitternessbitesback #please read and give me feedback #thank you!!!#i love you all!!!#sorry to mobile users!#i put the read more two paragraphs in #whoops

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mysticsparklewings · 5 years

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Roses in Your Eyes

Oh look, a not-Inktober thing! So after my first dive into The Realm of Gouache, I really wanted to play with the medium a little more and try doing some different things with it. More accurately, I wanted to try using the gouache more opaquely, since last time I took a more transparent/watercolor approach. Full disclosure, I actually had the sketch for this done before the gouache set even arrived to me. My original plan was to do the rose part of the "glasses" in the watercolor style from my In Bloom Le Plumes piece, maybe the leaves too, and then do the hair and possibly the skin in the more opaque gouache style. That was the plan so that I could try to get the most out of both sides to what gouache can do. But after I got the gouache and swatched it out, I wanted to try something a little more experimental before I jumped into this drawing so that I'd have a better handle on what I was actually working with. So that's where the first gouache painting came in. So it was after that when I made the decision to commit a little more closely to using gouache in it's more opaque form. The concept for the drawing is something of a play on the phrase "looking through rose-colored glasses," (or whatever the full version of that phrase is, you know what I mean). The original expression, as I'm sure we all know, means seeing something as being better than it actually is, usually because of personal bias. This idea takes it to a bit of an extreme; the glasses aren't just tinted in a rose color, they're straight-up roses. Instead of just viewing something as better than it actually is, the person is willfully ignoring or otherwise blinded to seeing things as they really are entirely. And possibly hurting themselves in the process, if the roses have thorns. (I didn't draw any but they could be there, unseen.) A couple of other notes on the drawing design before I move on: I went with buns in the hair since I usually draw loose/down hair and wanted to mix it up a bit, and to "close off" the drawing I added the leaves at the base of her neck, which also kind of double as a shirt-collar in terms of appearance, which I thought was neat. The leaves and the bit of vine across the nose, as may be obvious, are supposed to represent the frame and bridge of glasses. I transferred the lines from the sketch to piece of Strathmore mixed media paper since I didn't think I'd be using enough water or watercolor techniques to warrant breaking out some 100% cotton paper, but I wanted something thick enough to handle paint, and I thought the smooth-ish texture would suit the gouache based on what experimenting I'd already done. The roses for the eyes had no lines, and admittedly I probably could've gotten away with even fewer lines than the ones I did transfer since the gouache is opaque. I actually had a fair number of hairlines drawn in that got totally covered up since that was way easier than trying to carefully work around them. Anyway. For all the gouache parts, I started with a darker base color, since it's usually recommended that you work from dark to light in gouache, and then I'd go back in with 2-3 lighter colors on top to add shading/depth. The main issues I ran into were when the gouache color wasn't totally opaque, such as the rose base color (which is actually called "Rose," believe it or not) which gives me mixed feelings because on the one hand, it can look kind of interesting in giving you less structured, more unpredictable shading based on how you layer it, but also...well, it's not as opaque, so you have work with it slightly differently compared to the more opaque colors. The other issue was that I really struggled to have enough paint on my brush, particularly when doing tiny details, to get the full opacity and smooth color that I wanted, without leaving a glop of paint where it didn't need to be. Especially in areas like the hair that had a lot of fine tapering lines. I'm not sure how much of the problem is me and how my is or isn't my brushes or what, but this is something I occasionally have issues within acrylic painting too, but it felt way more prevalent here. I did manage to fix some areas that got away from me by layering darker colors back on top of the lighter ones, but then you also have areas like one of the loose hair strands around her chin that got away from me and I had to make noticeably longer than it originally was in order to fix it. (You can probably guess which one it was without me having to point it out for you.) I also had an "issue" in that it was seemingly very easy to mix up way too much of custom color, but that's more of a me problem than a problem with the paint. (And admittedly the above aren't necessarily paint-specific problems either.) Speaking of which, I'm still not sure if my "Titanium White" and "White" got mixed up or not, but since I suspect they did, I used the one I felt like looks more like the mixing white to do so. (Although admittedly I probably could've tried some mixing tests with both to see if I noticed a difference there whatever, perhaps some other time.) And I specifically avoided using black, since I thought it would be too harsh in mixes. For the hair, I just used one of the pre-mixed browns for my darkest and then used lighter colors and made my own lighter mixes to go over it. For the leaves, I actually mixed some of the Prussian Blue into one of the greens to make it darker. I think I may have benefitted from going a little lighter on how much of the blue went in, though. The roses were actually one of the more fun parts since they didn't have to be so precise or specific to make the look work. I started with a base of the Rose/hot pink color, mixed a lighter pink to make sections that probably should've been a little less light in color and slightly larger in shape, and then a slightly lighter pink than should have been lighter to layer on top of the already lighter pink parts. Partly because of some the issues I mentioned earlier and partly because I was just kinda going for whatever with only a minimal plan, I did have to go back and forth with the lights and darks in some areas on these, and I still don't think they look quite alike enough, even though I never intended to make them perfectly symmetrical. I also decided to not totally abandon gouache's watercolor properties with the background, since at this point I was thinking I didn't want to leave it plain white, but I also didn't want to do anything too complicated or intense that might take away from the rest of the art and the concept behind it. So I watered down some of the pink I used for the roses' base color and just kinda went over the background to my heart's content until I was happy with what the textures were doing since I knew it was unrealistic to expect to be able to get the background totally smooth trying to work around the rest of the drawing. Now, originally I was planning on painting in the skin with the gouache, however, I made the grave mistake of not thinking about it until after I'd pretty much finished with all the other painted parts, and I really did not feel like trying to paint around everything. And, honestly, I really did like the contrast of the white skin against the other colors. I did acknowledge that I could have mixed a gray from the gouache and shaded the white skin with that, but it felt like too much of a risk and still like too much of a hassle, so I conceited that I could bring other mediums into this since I'd already done my gouache-exclusive test piece. I grabbed a couple of very, very light gray Copic markers and added some very careful, very subtle shading to the skin. And you guys haven't seen the first time I used this mixed-media paper just yet (it's coming down the pipeline, I promise!), but for the second time I'm kind of in love with how it handles alcohol markers and I really need to try a more marker-heavy illustration on it sometime. After all that though, it was still missing a couple of things. I ended up breaking out my white uni-ball Signo gel pen to line around the girl just so she really would pop off the background, opting for it instead of the white gouache because, again, that seemed like too much of a chore to try and do. And my white Sakura gelly roll tends to be a little more transparent compared to the Signo, and I really wanted the stronger, stark white look. Then after some thinking, I added the rose lines in the background using a pink and a green Sakura gelly rolls and the stencil I've toyed with using on other projects before. And overall it, it has its faults (especially if you look at it too closely), but I really like how the whole thing turned out. It has almost a surreal vibe to it that I think drives home the initial concept really nicely, and just, in general, it's very sweet colors but has a more eerie feel to it. (At least when I look at it, anyway.) It also very vaguely gives me Luna-Lovegood vibes, so of course, I like it for that alone. I'm not sure what I'm going to make with the gouache next, as so far it seems its planning requires a slightly different thought process than I'm used to, but I have some ideas and all this has succeeded in doing is making me want to use the gouache more. This definitely isn't the last we'll be seeing of it, that's for sure! ____ Artwork © me, MysticSparkleWings ____ Where to find me & my artwork: My Website | Commission Info + Prices | Ko-Fi | dA Print Shop | RedBubble | Twitter | Tumblr | Instagram

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kingslance · 5 years

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Hiroto x Tatsuya

Here's another Ares ship! Enjoy~

Painting My World {Hiroto x Tatsuya}

Tatsuya watched as the stars seemed to twinkle in the galaxy painted on the canvas before him. He stood transfixed and his eyes sparkled more with each passing minute. There was nothing more beautiful than the painting hung on the wall in front of the entry gate of the school building. The cascade of colours blended perfectly – the purple, pink, yellow and all the shades of blue. If it were for Tatsuya, he would gladly spend the rest of his life staring at this wall.

The school bell ranked him out of his sweet trance and he sighed to himself defeatedly.

"What are you doing standing here?", a deep rough voice greeted him from behind, "It's rare seeing you this late".

Tatsuya turned to the speaker, "Morning, Hiroto! I was just looking at this", he pointed out the painting, "It's like they are sparkling".

Hiroto's face twisted with disgust, "The only thing sparkling here are your eyes. There's nothing special about that painting," he walked away, casually, "But as long as you like it, I'll let it be here."

Tatsuya tilted his head slightly in confusion. Did I say something wrong? What happened?

Later...

Seeing that painting first thing in the morning was, probably, a Curse! Tatsuya kept thinking about that, barely focusing on the class. It was science class and they were outside in the garden for some field research.

"Oi Tatsuya!", He lifted his gaze from flower he was inspecting, "Look! There's Hiroto", Nagumo pointed out, "Suzuno told me that it was their art class."

Tatsuya turned to the large Sakura tree under which the grey-haired boy sat. Their eyes met for a brief second until Hiroto buried himself in his sketchpad. Tatsuya never knew that he still drew, though he did give off that artistic vibe. He quickly completed his report and walked up to him.

"Yo, Hiroto!", he greeted as he sat down next to him. The sun glistened right above them with a soft glow.

"What are you doing here? Don't you have class going on?", Hiroto closed off the sketchbook, abruptly, much to Tatsuya's dismay.

"I submitted my report", he answered with a smile, "What were you drawing? Can I see?"

Hiroto turned abruptly, "No! It's not that good."

The redhead felt taken aback but he had already anticipated this kind of reaction. "Mind telling me what it was? I won't look."

"The most beautiful thing around here", Hiroto voiced out, "That was the theme."

Tatsuya was thoroughly confused and even more curious. What could he have drawn? He glanced around himself to spot the flowerbed where he had been working. The flowers laughed against the sun in full bloom.

"It must be the flowers! They are so beautiful today", Tatsuya mused out loud. Hiroto clicked him tongue causing him to turn to him.

"As if those stupid flowers could even compare to that", he blurted out. Beside him, red, green, blue colour pencils lay scattered. Hiroto clutched his sketchpad tightly and looked away with a tint of pink wash over his face, as Tatsuya continued to look at him.

"Then, why don't you just tell me?", Tatsuya asked him bright eyes. Hiroto shifted a little back.

"I HATE YOUR EYES! DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT!", Hiroto blurted out and stood up gathering his supplies. Tatsuya watched him leave, silently.

He hates me! He hates me so much!

It wasn't the first time he had said that. Tatsuya felt a pang in his heart. He got up quietly and left for his classroom.

Maybe I shouldn't have forced him so much!

Later…

The school ended, sullenly. It wouldn't be true to say that Hiroto's words had no effect on him. Nevertheless, he smiled at Nagumo and told him to continue the practice before him.

He wanted to see the painting before going over to the field. He had been greatly agitated after the science class and knew that he needed to calm down.

Tatsuya crossed the hallway nonchalantly. He knew that he had to deal with Hiroto again, to get to practice. For that he needed to be calm and bright. He sighed heavily to himself.

Where have I gone wrong?

He forced back the tears that were threatening to roll down his pale cheeks. Just as he was about to turn, he noticed someone standing before the painting, looking at it with a sketchpad at his side. His grey shaggy hair swirled lightly on the wind.

Hiroto! What is he doing here? Maybe I should apologise for before!

He gathered his strength to walk up to him, taking a deep breath. Be calm! He stood next to him quietly, clearing his throat. I should start with something light!

"Hiroto?", he smiled with all of his might, "So, you also liked-"

"Don't force yourself!", Tatsuya stopped breathing.

"Wh-What do you-"

"Don't try to act all cheery!", Hiroto cut him off again, without even looking at him.

"I-I don't know what you mean", Tatsuya's throat went dry and he lowered his gaze for a second, gathering all of his strength, he smiled at Hiroto, brightly. Hiroto turned his mauve eyes towards him in a side-glance and for some reason, Tatsuya found them piercing his heart.

"Your eyes tell it all!", Hiroto remarked.

No! Not my eyes again! Please!

Tatsuya's heart was pierced by a thousand glass shards. He knew something is going to happen. He lowered his eyes again and turned to leave.

"Ex-Excuse me", he managed to whisper out.

"I have been watching you the whole day, Tatsuya", he dropped dead in his track refusing to turn, "Is it because of what I said earlier?", Hiroto's voice had concern in it.

Tatsuya could feel his eyes going watery, "It's nothing really", his voice cracked.

"I knew it!", Hiroto grabbed his wrist and turned him towards himself, forcefully.

Please let me go! Please! I don't want you, of all people, to see me like this!

Hiroto's eyes widened as tears rolled down his teal eyes. He abruptly wiped them away, but it was already too late!

"Hey, you can the painting, okay? So, don't cry! Though it's not as good as the real thing", Hiroto bit his lip.

"You don't have to force yourself, Hiroto. It's not about the painting", Tatsuya forced a smile.

Hiroto threw his sketchpad away, violently, and ran to his home as fast as his legs could carry. He felt as if he had broken something precious and nobody scolded him for that. Just like that day!

He slumped down in his bed and buried his face in his pillow.

I'm an idiot! AN IDIOT! I made him cry. What should I do? I should have let him see that painting. I shouldn't have said that! Now, he hates me even more! He despises me!

Later…

It must have a long time when he heard a knock on his door.

"Go away!", Hiroto shouted in his muffled voice.

"Hiroto?", he lifted his up on the familiar delicate voice.

"Tatsuya!", he said, slowly.

"Can I come in?", Tatsuya's voice was calmer from the last time he heard it.

Hiroto complied to his request and Tatsuya walked up to his large bed and handed him his sketchpad.

"I'm sorry", Tatsuya started looking away slightly. "I'm sorry I saw your drawings."

Hiroto felt like slapping himself, "I'M SORRY", he declared loudly, "I'm the one who should apologise, okay?"

Tatsuya's widened in surprise but then he smiled brightly at him with a trace of blush gracing his cheeks, "I never noticed, Hiroto. I'm that dense, ain't I?"

"It's because I never told you. dummy", Hiroto's cheeks were stained pink.

"Then, I'll wait until you tell me."

Hiroto pulled him by the hand, suddenly, much to Tatsuya's shock as he landed on top of him. Hiroto's hand slid to the back of his waist and the other caressed his hair, lovingly.

"Hiroto? What are-", Tatsuya was cut short as Hiroto pressed his lips on his in a quick unpredictable kiss. He could feel heat rise up, instantly.

"Your eyes are the most beautiful things in the world and I love them! Your sweet red hair too. Your delicate soft hands and the sound of my name on your lips. Your smile lights up my world. I wish I could draw all that in that painting", Hiroto's slender fingers traced the outline of his scarlet face, staring in those teal eyes.

Tatsuya buried his face in his chest, blushing madly, "I love you too, Hiroto", he whispered with a small voice.

Beside them lay the sketchpad which had Hiroto's world painted in!

Idk what I was thinking when writing this!! I hope it doesn't disappoint too much ( not like anyone is expecting anything from me )!!

#inazuma eleven ares #inazuma eleven ares no tenbin #kira hiroto #kiyama tatsuya #hiroto x tatsuya #fanfiction #idk if this is good enough #inavember

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