#wait not a waiter ive never held a job that made me talk to people | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

silverfootstepswrites · 7 years

Text

title Bitters summary We’ll be alright. pairing itasaku, tobisaku, hot messes rating grandma, i’m sorry for the end

The street was slick with rain. The asphalt gleamed. Its various and tiny imperfections filling with water. Each groove and hole shimmering, reflecting upside down lights.

Sakura sat at the window, staring down her sullen reflection. Listening to the shriek of the espresso machine in the background. The scrape of metal chair legs against the tile. Closing her eyes, she let the emptiness pool inside her- like she was one of the ruts in the road.

“Ah, this was why you didn’t want to meet in the training hall,” said Rock, settling in the chair across from her. Eyes still closed, Sakura frowned.

“Rock, where are your manners?” she scolded.

“M’hou yi si, Aunt Cheng,” he replied. And she knew that he was humoring her. Could hear the smile in his voice. She opened her eyes, hand curled in front of her mouth. Rock’s eyes trailed from her face to the reddened skin peeking out from her chest. His thick eyebrows rose.

“May I?” he asked?

Sakura shrugged her coat off her left shoulder. Her newest tattoo was still raw and scabbed around the edges. But it was unmistakably a tiger crawling down her bicep. Its body wrapped over her left shoulder, the tip of its tail tracing her shoulder blade. It almost looked as if it was jumping off the back of the phoenix on her forearm.

After a while, she pulled her coat back on. She was by no means shy about her ink, but this was a nice cafe in the Mid-Levels. There was no need to draw attention to herself in a place like this. Although, from the looks the owner kept shooting her from behind the counter, she guessed that she had already been recognized.

“Feeling nervous, Aunt Cheng? Hoping that tiger’s going to protect you?” asked Rock, motioning for a waiter. The owner hissed something at one of the employees, sending him over with a smack to the back of the head. The boy stumbled over, menu trembling in his hands. Rock waved it away.

He pointed at the glass in front of Sakura. “That looks good.”

“It’s an espressotini. Coffee, vodka, and kahlua,” she listed, smirking, “Better not.” Rock chuckled.

“Green juice, then,” he ordered. Nodding too many times, the waiter hurried off. Ducking under the counter, he thrust his head into the back kitchen to put in the order. From the way he jerked his arms, it looked like he was expediting the order.

“Good service here,” remarked Rock, as cheerful as always.

“I was in Ginza for a bit, you know. Went in as a favor to Tenten- not Tommy Wong,” he then informed her, as if that was necessary. Sakura wasn’t even sure how far back Rock Lee and Tenten went. It was certainly before she had met the martial artist. And then Rock rapped his knuckles against the tabletop.

“And for you too, of course,” he amended. Sakura had to smile at that.

“Roughed up some guys. Helped Tenten with some interrogations- which I hate, by the way.” He pointed at her. The owner cringed from behind the espresso machine. Sakura pushed Rock’s finger down, ignoring the rudeness.

“And then I talked with some of my former students. None of the Chrysanthemum boys seemed to know what was going on. So I think Tobirama’s clean,” concluded Rock. And as soon as he had finished speaking, the waiter dropped off his drink. It had been made with disturbing speed. And the waiter made himself scarce, never daring to even glance at Sakura.

“You know, I still don’t like that you train anyone with the right ‘spirit of youth’. I’d reward you handsomely if you only trained Jade Gang boys,” Sakura reminded him. But Rock scowled as he took a big slurp of his drink. Sakura eyed what looked like grass clippings shooting up his straw.

“Sifu Might taught me that anyone with the spirit of youth can be a student of gong fu. I can’t turn away from any part of his teachings,” insisted Rock. But they had had the same discussion many times before. Sakura shook her head.

“You’re loyal to a fault, Rock,” she sighed.

“So are you, Aunt Cheng. You promised my sifu that you would look out for me. And here we are, so many years later,” Rock pointed out. Sakura watched him over the rim of her glass while she took a sip. Rock smiled.

“It hasn’t been that long,” replied Sakura in a quiet voice. The emptiness surged back up in the pit of her stomach as she remembered Gai. His blood pooling on the concrete like rain. The way both his legs twisted the wrong way. His lips turning purple, and then blue. She gulped down the rest of her drink.

“I’m sure Sifu would hate to know that his death has caused so much strife,” added Rock, his voice softening. Sakura turned away from him.

“There was bad blood between Kabuto and me long before he died, Rock. That was just the final straw,” snapped Sakura.

The only sound at their table was Rock slurping his drink through the clear straw.

After a while, the rain began to let up. It was strange enough for it to rain in Hong Kong in the winter anyway. Even stranger for her to be wearing such a heavy coat. She left money on the table. Getting to her feet, she hooked her purse over her forearm. Rock got up too.

“Do you need help getting anywhere, Sakura?” asked Rock, gesturing to her foot. She was wearing long pants, but the edge of her ankle wrapping peeked out. That, and the fact that she wasn’t wearing heels probably gave it away too.

“I’m good. Thanks, Lee. You’re a peach,” Sakura replied. She blew him a kiss. And he pretended to catch it, stowing it in his pocket. The old gag never failed to make her smile. And it didn’t fail this time either.

As she walked out of the cafe, her phone rang.

“He wasn’t followed. He seems okay, Aunt Cheng,” said Sai. Sakura looked around.

“Warmer,” Sai hinted.

And then Sakura spotted the telescope in the window of a building across the street. She glimpsed Sai dressed in all black, barely peering out behind the scope. Sakura waved.

“Damn, you’re good at this,” he grumbled, waving back for a second. Sakura laughed.

“I keep telling you, Sai. Rock Lee isn’t like us. He’s a civilian,” Sakura said as she began walking. There was a clatter from the other end. Probably Sai opening up his case to start disassembling his surveillance gear.

“Civilians scare easily. A couple death threats and they do anything. You know that,” replied Sai. Sakura waited at a crosswalk for the light to change. Her phone pinged. She swiped her finger across the notification.

“You know I’m right; that’s why you’re not saying anything. You’ve got a lot of enemies, Boss. Please be more careful,” Sai went on.

The light changed. Sakura surged forward with the crowd. She glanced down at her wristwatch. Sai caught on that she wasn’t really listening.

“You heading home, Boss?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Alright. I’ll head to Lucky’s. Call if you need me.”

“Sai,” she called. He hesitated.

“...Yes?”

“Even if Rock was betraying me, I wouldn’t want to know.”

She hung up, dropping her phone into her pocket. Even with that high-powered telescope, Sai wouldn’t be able to see this far. She let herself dissolve into the sea of faces. Pulling up the hood of her coat, she disappeared completely. Just another tired face milling around in the street.

The walk down to the Mid Level Escalators was short. In the usual parking garage, she found her car. She hadn’t driven it much since buying it last year. The inside still had the plastic, new car smell. It wasn’t one of the fancy sports cars that Hashirama loved so much. It was black, sleek. Unremarkable once it merged with the rest of the traffic on the freeway. And she liked it that way.

The traffic in this part of the city wasn’t so terrible this time of day. By the time she made it to her penthouse, it had stopped raining completely. The private elevator up to her place had been worth paying extra. She couldn’t imagine the awkward silence of going up with someone carrying groceries. Sakura watched the city shrink even more and more as the elevator climbed each floor. And when it arrived, she suddenly felt very tired. She scanned her key card, and then her thumbprint before slipping inside.

Her swollen ankle made it hard to kick off her shoes like she normally did. Instead, Sakura sat in the foyer, toeing off one shoe. And then she unlaced the other side. Coaxing her foot out, rubbing her thumbs into the tender underside. She limped to the kitchen. Now that there was no one watching, she didn’t have to act like it didn’t hurt. Because it ached like hell.

“Are you stupid?” Karin berated her when she had called two weeks ago from Tokyo.

Sakura blinked. Because there were few people who spoke to her that way anymore. She almost missed it.

“It’s not healing because you keep walking on it. Sit down!” the doctor scolded.

Sakura considered the knife in her hand. She held it up to the light, watching it glint off the blade. Frowning, she put it down and picked up another one. Stared at the point. Weighed it in her palm.

“Well, you see, that’s kind of a problem,” uttered Sakura as she raised her hand. She plunged the blade of the knife down. The man tied to the chair let out a muffled scream from behind his gag. Sakura lifted her bloodied finger in front of her lips, shushing him.

“I’m on the phone,” she whispered, pulling the receiver away from her mouth. He sobbed quietly as she resumed her conversation.

“You’re not Usain Bolt. I’m sure you can sit for just a week,” Karin snorted.

“I don’t exactly have an office job. You can’t go around extorting and shooting in a wheelie chair,” replied Sakura.

“I really wish you hadn’t told me that,” groaned Karin.

Sakura choose another knife. After examining it, she raised it. The man shrieked, writhing against his restraints. Sakura gave him a look.

“Hold on, Doc,” Sakura said. She pressed the mute button on her phone.

“Look, I’m trying to multitask here, okay? I’m really going to need you to work with me. And since you swore to me that you don’t know anything about Ghost-”

“Mmfmm! Mfmmm!” he gargled against the fabric stuffed into his mouth. Sakura turned to look at Tenten. Tenten, who had always been a little nicer, reached over to rip the tape and cloth from his face.

“I know him! Ghost! I know him, okay?” he sniveled, tears and snot streaming down his face. Sakura considered him. Stared him dead in the eyes, her expression blank. He trembled. Several seconds passed. And then Sakura smiled, so kindly that it was worse than her glare.

“See? We could’ve avoided all of this,” she said, gesturing with the knife, “if you had just told the truth.” But when she gripped the handle and raised it again, he shook his head.

“Wh-wha-what are you doing? I just said I’d talk!” he sputtered.

“Oh, I know. This one’s for lying,” Sakura replied. Tenten shoved the gag back into his mouth. And Sakura jammed the knife in deep into his thigh, twisting it against the heel of her hand. Sticking her finger in her ear, Sakura walked out of the room. She didn’t unmute the phone until the door shut behind her.

“Sorry about that,” Sakura said. She wiped her hand against her shirt as she spoke.

“Like I was saying, you need to give your body time to rest. Stop fucking up your ankle even more, Haruno!” Karin went right back to scolding. Sakura leaned against the door.

“Yeah, let me just roll into the room in a wheelchair. That’ll be intimidating. Or even better yet, let me have Sai carry me in on his back,” Sakura drawled. Karin let out a long, aggravated breath.

“Look. You’re bleeding, slap a bandage on it. You’re itchy, put some cream on it. You twist your ankle, let the ligaments heal,” said Karin.

And Sakura had proceeded to ignore this advice for the next two weeks.

She dumped ice into a plastic bag. Wrapped it in a towel. As she hobbled her way to the bedroom, her phone rang. She ignored it. She shed her coat, threw it over the back of the coral armchair. Sat on her bed and placed the ice on her throbbing ankle. As she waited for the pain to ebb, she throught back on the past several days.

Her interrogation while on the phone with Karin had been useless. Though the man had claimed to know about Ghost, really all he knew was that he sometimes hung out in Seoul. Before Sakura could get mad at all the time he had wasted, Tenten had grabbed the chair with him still in it. And with all her freakish strength, she’d shoved him through the fifth-story window. Onto the concrete docks below. Glass pattered against the pavement like sparkling hail.

“Oh my,” remarked Sakura. They peeked out the window together. His blood splattered out like a red Rorschach test.

“Sorry, Boss. That’ll be a headache for you later. He just pissed me off so much,” Tenten remarked.

“I understand. This is Yamanaka-kai territory, though. They can get pretty touchy,” Sakura thought out loud.

That had been the second most annoying phone call that week. The first had been neogitation with contractors to begin emergency repairs on the club. After a while, she had lost her temper and barged into an office with a steel pipe in one hand and her gun in the other. Just to remind them of why she was requesting such fast work.

“Just like old times,” Tenten had chuckled in the car later.

With some help from the Sarutobi-gumi, who were suspiciously chummy with the local police, they had managed to get the shoot-out written off as stunt-work for a movie shoot gone awry in the local news. Tommy had gone around offering hush-money and threats to the civilians who had gotten hurt. And overall, the entire affair wasn’t as much of as hassle as she had expected.

So now, here she was. In Hong Kong again.

The cold seeped into her skin. Her foot began to feel a little numb, tingling in places. Just as she relaxed a little, her phone ran again.

“Diu lan lei! Who keeps fucking calling me? she swore. She grabbed the phone from the pocket of her coat. Held it up to her ear.

“Wei,” she snapped.

“I’m sorry. Did I catch you at a bad time?” asked Itachi. He sounded genuinely apologetic. And that made her regret her tone.

“Not really,” she replied.

“Well I’m sorry anyway. I stopped by Twilight Dreams today. I’m surprised how good it looks already,” Itachi went on. Sakura raised an eyebrow.

“You must be bored if that’s what you’re doing lately, Kumicho,” she observed. Itachi chuckled. It sounded richer over the phone, somehow.

“I actually went to see you, but you weren’t there. Deidara told me you were back in Hong Kong,” he explained. She leaned back on her hand.

“Oh? What for?” she pressed. Actually somewhat curious. His answer surprised her.

“I brought you lavender. I feel like you like purple flowers the most.”

She tried not to laugh. “You’re still doing that?”

“Am I wrong?” he asked in turn.

Sakura bit her lower lip. She looked down at her bedspread. It was light purple.

“...No. I don’t hate purple,” she admitted.

“But you’re right. That’s not all. I did want to ask you something.”

“Oh.” The stab of disappointment startled her.

“I actually wanted to ask how your ankle was doing. I’m still sorry that I didn’t notice it,” Itachi confessed.

Sakura laid down on her bed. Flexing her injured foot a little. Just to test it. It still hurt.

“Not too well. The swelling isn’t going down much,” she reported.

“I assume you’re walking around on it every day like it’s fine,” he stated.

“Yes,” she replied. He laughed, the sound full against her ear. She closed her eyes.

“Then obviously it won’t get better. Are you icing it?”

“I am now.”

The conversation petered off into more mundane things. A new restaurant he had eaten at for breakfast that day. How his little brother kept asking if she would come to play again soon. In the middle of another story, Sakura’s eyes flew open. She bolted upright.

“Wait. What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

“Pardon?”

“What’re you getting at- talking to me like this?”

“Ah,” was all he said. She waited, hand clenching into the comforter. Listening. And then Itachi chuckled again. The sound like warm water over aching muscles.

“I just wanted to hear your voice, Jing-Mei.”

“Pok gaai, don’t waste my time,” she snapped, hanging up. She put her phone on silent, tossing it aside. But she worried for nothing. Because Itachi didn’t call again that day. And she couldn’t help but find her eyes wandering to the screen every once in a while. Waiting for it to light up with his name again.

Sakura woke the following day in a foul mood. She couldn’t quite explain why. But her gaze alone was a weapon. One of the receptionists burst into tears when she met Sakura’s eyes- prompting the other to apologize too many times. So Sakura put on her sunglasses, ignoring the odd looks she got from Tenten for doing so.

She sat in the conference room of Lucky’s. It was one of the Jade Gang’s many fronts in Hong Kong. Although, this one was special because it served as their headquarters. Lucky’s was a small shipping company. It had been a pain in the ass to get through all the paperwork. In the end, it had made life so much easier.

Gambling dens and massage parlors were all obvious choices. Any half-sober moron could bust into one and find something dirty happening in the back room. But in the offices of a startup company with a cartoon rabbit for a mascot? Who would think to look for a criminal organization?

“What do we know?” she demanded, feet up on the table. A cold compress draped over her ankle. It was slightly less purple today. Her cream-colored blazer hung over her shoulders, the empty sleeves dangling. She lifted her sunglasses to rest on top of her head.

“About this quarter?” asked one of the newer recruits. Sakura picked up a stapler off the table and threw it at his head. He just barely managed to duck in time. It smacked against the wall, falling to the floor with a thud.

“Ham ga chaan! Obviously, not the fucking quarterlies!” she exclaimed. He cowered, hands still over his head.

“Sorry, B-boss,” he squeaked.

“I mean over who the fuck shot up my club, lan yeung,” Sakura clarified, still glowering. He bowed his head, stuttered out another apology.

“Well, like you said, the Chrysanthemum Gang seems clean,” Sai interrupted before she could throw something heavier. He exchanged a pointed look with Tenten. She cleared her throat.

“I grabbed Charlie Lau after he helped Tobirama find York Ng. We even looked into my old connections from Kobe. Seems like they’re just as lost about this as we are,” Tenten reported.

“What about the Red Arrow boys, Sai?” questioned Sakura. Sai rubbed the back of his neck, squinting.

“Well, there’s no point in telling you not to get mad, I guess. I’ve been looking into it. Looks like Kabuto’s boys have been hitting the nightclubs with Yamanaka Inoichi,” he stated. Sakura watched him, hand under her chin.

“It makes sense. Since they couldn’t get a deal with us. They’re trying to make a Hong Kong connect elsewhere,” she answered, remarkably calm. Thinking for a moment, she held her hand out. Tenten handed her a thick folder. Sakura thumbed through it until she found the right file.

“Word is that ever since Red Arrow fucked up and blew up Belcher Bay last year, it’s been crawling with cops. They’re desperate to ship their drugs out, so I’m guessing that they’re trying to get the Yamanaka-kai to do their work for them,” Sakura surmised, skimming through the notes. It was really convenient to have a HK police officer under her thumb. Their case files were so organized.

“It’s definitely that sleaze Kabuto, then. He’s always trying to start shit with you, Aunt Cheng,” grumbled Tenten. Sakura cracked a smile at that.

“What do you suggest, Tenten?” she queried.

“Burn his house down with him still inside,” Tenten immediately said.

“Rip his organs out and string him from the Tsing Ma Bridge,” Sai chimed in. Tenten looked at him.

“We can’t even see the Tsing Ma Bridge from here,” she pointed out. Sai smiled.

“Exactly. I don’t want to have to look at him,” he replied. He and Tenten snickered. Tenten dodged when Sakura threw her cold compress. It smacked Sai in the stomach instead, knocking the breath out of him.

“We’re still good with the Chrysanthemum Gang, so we can use Repulse Bay, right?” Tenten suddenly asked. Sakura glanced at her, eyebrows rising.

“Of course. Why?” she queried in return.

Tenten put her hands on her hips, face scrunching up. “I don’t know. Tobirama gives me the creeps. I don’t know how you deal with him at all, Boss.”

“Quite easily,” Sakura said out loud.

“What?” asked Tobirama, one eye squinting open. His hands tightened on her hips.

“Don’t worry about it,” she replied, bending over to kiss the tattoo on his chin. And then she leaned back on her palms, grinding against him. He grit his teeth, breaths shaky. Hands sliding down to grip the backs of her thighs. She wrapped her arms around him, pressing his face against her chest. Fingers sliding into his sweaty hair. Eyes squeezing shut to listen to skin slapping against skin.

“Did you shoot up my club?” she suddenly questioned. Tobirama’s hands stilled, and so did his hips.

“What?” His voice went flat.

Sakura tried to resume rocking against him. But Tobirama held her there, arms unyielding. They both sat there, panting quietly in the dark.

“Nothing. Forget it,” she sighed.

“Jing-Mei, why the hell would I do that?” demanded Tobirama. Sakura shrugged.

“Because you’re an asshole?” she suggested.

“Pok gaai,” Tobirama growled. He wrapped his arms around her, slamming her down into his lap. She cried out, half in surprise and half in pleasure.

“You’re the fucking worst,” he muttered against her shirt. Sakura pulled away just enough to see his face by the light of the city. His expression lit up all fluorescent blue. She smiled.

“So are you.”

#eastern suns #writing #itasaku #triad!sakura x yakuza!itachi #tobisaku #dysfunctional af #triad!au

114 notes · View notes