Chapter 19

Sakura didn't talk to Tsunade again for a while because for the next ten days she was so busy that she had no time to think about anything whatever. She was existing on little more than four hours of sleep a night, and she was glad that, somehow, gradually, Hanabi had taken over the daily care of Kenji. Sakura didn't know whether to be grateful or sad that her son took so well to being bathed by someone other than his mother, dressed by someone else and read to sleep by another woman. And she hadn't had time to sit down with Kenji and hear what he had to say about spending so much time away from his mother.

Somehow, Sakura wasn't sure when or exactly how, Hanabi had moved into the Yakimizu house. And why not? Sakura thought. It wasn't as though anything private was going on between her and Sasuke.

After Sakura had been in town only two days, Hinata Hyuga gave birth to a baby girl, and within two weeks Hinata had organized her whole household so well that she had her baby waking for only one feeding during the night (which Naruto took care of) and Hinata was helping Sasuke to sort out the town of Konoha in preparation for the library's opening.

"I love you," Sasuke said once after Hinata rattled off a list of things that had been done and were being done.

"Hmph!" Hinata said, but they could all see that she was pleased by his compliment. She was wearing a white Chanel suit, but strapped across her chest was a huge scarf that had to have been made in Africa, and inside, her newborn daughter was sleeping peacefully.

After Hinata returned to work, Hanabi moved into the house with Sakura, Sasuke, and Kenji and began to look after the little boy. By that time Sakura had overcome her jealousy and was just grateful. Every morning Hanabi saw that Kenji was fed whatever Hiro had cooked especially for him; then she took the boy to the library. And each morning Kenji would take the key out of his pocket and make a ceremony of opening the door to the Private Room, then disappear inside for the whole day.

Sakura did, however, have a fit of pique once when Hiro showed up and Kenji invited the chef into the "secret" room. Thirty minutes later Hiro came out, his eyes wide in wonder, but his lips were sealed.

"Did the boy's father paint too?"

"I don't know," Sakura said. "Why?"

"That boy got a double dose of talent, and I just wondered where it came from. Can I be here when the Daimyo sees that room?"

"Did you forget that you're catering for him?" Sasuke shouted from the scaffolding, where he was on his back painting the ceiling.

"Right," Hiro said, then leaned forward to Sakura to whisper, "How long has he been in this bad mood?"

"Since he was born," she said without hesitation.

Nodding, Hiro left the library.

It was well into the third week that Sakura began to see what was happening between her and Sasuke. It took her that long to get over her annoyance that he was paying no attention to her, and she was so busy with the painting that she hadn't had time to look and listen.

But by the third week they were all into a routine, and she began to see things. She wasn't the only one who had changed. Sasuke had changed too, but she didn't think he knew it. As the days passed, one by one, her objections to him were destroyed.

The first time it happened she hadn't paid much attention. A little boy, about eight, tiptoed into the library and silently handed Sasuke a piece of paper. Sasuke made a few marks on the paper, said a few words to the boy, then the child had left the library with a big grin on his face.

The next day the same thing happened, then the next. Each time it was a different child, sometimes two children; sometimes as many as three interrupted Sasuke as he painted.

One afternoon a tall boy of about sixteen came in, shoved a paper under Sasuke's nose and stood there with a look of defiance on his face. Sasuke wiped off his paintbrush, then went into the office with the boy and stayed in there with him for over an hour.

If Sakura hadn't been up to her neck in painting, she would have been quite curious as to what was going on, but she had too much to do to think of anything but getting the murals on the walls.

It was after the sketches were up and all that was needed was days of fill-in work that she was sitting with Hanabi and Kenji, eating the pasta salad and crab cakes Hiro had made for lunch, when two little girls came in with papers and handed them to Sasuke.

"What is he doing?" Sakura asked.

"Homework," Hanabi said.

"What do you mean, homework?"

Hanabi waited until she'd finished chewing. "He's Mr. Homework. He helps the kids out with their schoolwork."

"Hanabi, so help me, if you make me beg you for every piece of information . . ."

"I think it started as a joke. At the pet store. No, at the barbershop. Yeah, that's it. The men had nothing to do on a Saturday, so they started complaining that they didn't understand their kids' homework, so somebody said that if Sasuke really wanted to help Konoha, he'd make the kids smart."

"So?" Sakura asked, narrowing her eyes at Hanabi. "How could Sasuke make the kids smarter?"

"I don't know, but the board of education says that our kids are a lot smarter now."

Sakura wanted to ask more questions, since she didn't understand anything from what Hanabi had said, but she had a feeling she wasn't going to get much more information from this conversation. Sakura turned to her son.

"So how are you doing in there? Can I see what you're painting?"

Kenji had his mouth full, but he gave a smile and shook his head no.

"Please," Sakura said. "Can't I just have a peek?"

Nearly giggling, Kenji kept shaking his head no. This was a daily conversation, and Sakura went to great lengths to think up persuasions and promises to try to get Kenji to let her inside the room. But he never came close to relenting.

It was the next day, when Naruto came to the library to view the progress of the murals, that Sakura managed to get Naruto off into a corner. "What is this Mr. Homework stuff I've heard about?"

"Tsunade didn't tell you?" Naruto asked. "I would have thought she'd have told you everything and then some."

"Actually, I'm beginning to think that no one has told me anything."

"I know the feeling well. My brother has an open door to any child in Konoha who needs help with his homework."

When Sakura just looked at him, Naruto continued. "It started as a joke. People in Konoha were suspicious of Sasuke's motives for helping rebuild the town, and—"

"Why? He's a hometown boy."

Naruto took a moment before he answered. "I think you should ask Sasuke about that one. Let's just say that they were a little concerned that he had some devious, underlying reason for what he was doing. So one day some men were talking and—"

"Gossiping in the barbershop."

Naruto smiled. "Exactly. They said that if Sasuke wanted to do some good, he could help the kids with their homework."

"And?"

"And he did."

Sakura looked at Naruto. "What is it that you're holding back?"

"Would you believe, love for my brother? Sasuke had Hinata look into the test scores of Konoha's children, and I can tell you that they were appalling. A town that's had as many out-of-work people as Konoha has, has depression for dinner each night. Sasuke knew that it would do no good to give a pep talk to the people that they should help the kids with their schoolwork, so he hired tutors."

Turning, Naruto looked at his brother's broad back as he helped Iruka with a painting. "My brother didn't hire dry, scholarly professors. No, he hired out-of-work actors and dancers and writers and retired sea captains and doctors and—" Pausing, he grinned at Sakura. "Sasuke hired a lot of people with a lot of knowledge who wanted to share that knowledge. They came here and worked at the schools for three months. And afterward, quite a few of those people decided to stay here."

Sakura was silent for a moment as she digested this information. "And he helps the children with their homework?"

"Yes. Sasuke said that I'd given him the idea. I'd said that there were 'other children.' " Naruto's voice lowered. "I was talking to him about there being children other than Kenji."

"I see," Sakura said, but she wasn't sure that she did see.

It was after that conversation that she began to watch Sasuke more closely. Over the past two years, when she'd been in Suna trying to make her own way, she'd built up an image of this man in her head. She'd read all the articles about his philanthropy and she'd applied that to her own situation in which Sasuke had spent a lot of money on her and her child. She had concluded that Sasuke and his money were one and the same.

But giving of money and giving of yourself to help children understand long division were two different things.

It was after her talk with Naruto that Sakura quit trying to entice Sasuke. Instead, she tried to see him as he really was and not as she'd thought he was based on a few press articles and what she assumed he was like. As secretly as she could, she began to watch him.

For one thing, he complained all the time about how much everything was costing him, but she never once saw him turn down any bill. By snooping through some papers he left lying about, she found out that he owned the local mortgage company and that he had given low-interest loans to most of the businesses and several farms in the surrounding area.

Sakura also saw that the formidable Hinata Hyuga seemed to have changed toward him.

As nonchalantly as she could manage, as though it meant nothing to her, Sakura said to Hinata, "Is it just me or has he changed?"

"From black to white," Hinata said, then walked away.

One Saturday morning, Sasuke wasn't in the library and Sakura found him at the school grounds playing basketball with half a dozen boys who made Iruka look like an upstanding citizen. "So how many boys like you has Sasuke taken on?" she asked Iruka later that day.

Iruka grinned at her. "Lots. We used to have a gang, but . . ." He trailed off, then went back to painting. "He thinks he can get me some more work like this," Iruka said softly. "He thinks I have talent."

"You do," Sakura said, then wondered if Sasuke planned to paint the inside of every building he owned just to give these gangsters a job.

When Sasuke returned from playing basketball, Sakura looked up at him. He was wearing gray sweatpants that were dirty, sweat-soaked, and torn. And she'd never seen any human sexier than he was at that moment.

For a moment Sasuke looked at her, and Sakura turned away in embarrassment, but not before Sasuke gave her a knowing grin.

"Hey!" Iruka yelled because Sakura had just drawn a camel's face on a princess's body.

"Sorry," Sakura murmured and refused to turn back around to look at Sasuke.

Just a few more days, she thought, and a thrill of excitement went through her.