I just had to type this out. My muse has been particularly abusive about writing this particular story and refuses to help me on I'm Not Going to Listen until I finished this… I promise, I'll get more chapters of it out – pinky promise. Many thanks to Chibi-Kyuubi-Chan who is always reviewing!
After a particularly difficult espionage ANBU mission, Itachi stumbled to the Konoha hospital, tattered and broken. His team had been found by enemy shinobi and to save the bloodshed of his teammates, he took a majority of the blows. He was now realizing what a stupid thing that was to do. Especially when he collapsed before the hospital doors.
Naturally, when he finally awoke, he believed that the pink haired woman above him was an angel.
Her emerald green eyes were bright with worry; her hands, glowing the same color as her eyes, pressed into Itachi's chest and healing the worst of his wounds. Her face held so much concern for his well being, he wanted to reach up and smoothen the worry lines in her forehead and reassure her that he was going to survive.
He survived, of course.
After his near death experience, Itachi's new resolution was to discover more about the mysterious pink haired kunoichi slash medic. The most information Itachi had on hand was that the girl was his otuoto's teammate and fan girl, as well as Lady Tsunade's talented apprentice.
The information "on hand" was not enough to feed his hunger. He needed more.
For a day, she haunted Itachi's thoughts, his dreams, and his conscience. He resolved to visit her and learn more about her. In any other person's words: Follow her for a week. In general terms: Stalk her. When it came to women, Itachi was surprisingly straight forward.
The Uchiha heir, using subtlety and curiosity, asked Sasuke about his teammates and learned the pink haired minx's name was Sakura. Sakura… How fitting.
Indifferently, his otouto also informed him that in their younger years, the other children would tease Sakura for her large forehead and her skills as a kunoichi – or rather, lack thereof. Then, Sasuke honestly and surprisingly admitted that she was probably much stronger than he now.
Within his first week of "observation," Itachi learned that Sakura spent a majority of her time at the library. The aspiring medic used her free time hunched over scroll after scroll of unknown information, occasionally taking notes and obviously leaving with a much fuller brain capacity.
Itachi was as so bold as to sit directly across from her with his own scroll in hand. She would not realize this. She did not make it known that she knew he was there, for example: acknowledging the Uchiha's presence.
Itachi would skim the scroll, barely comprehending the worn and faded characters that lived on the page. He had eyes only for Sakura.
When reading, the medic would bite her bottom lip, a habit born many, many years ago. Her eyes would scan across a line or two, then she would reach for her pen and while doing so, her lower lip would escape the confines of her teeth. After quickly jotting down some notes, the plump flesh would be once again gathered into her mouth.
Occasionally, pink strands of hair for which she was appropriately named, would fall over her eyes and obscuring her vision from her precious scroll. She would glare at the offending locks – and still not manage to sense Itachi's presence – and fiercely pull all of her hair into her hand and deftly spin it into a bun on the top of her head.
Her hair implement fascinated Itachi: a senbon. A symbol of a truly seasoned shinobi.
Elsewhere, Itachi glimpsed at her from a distance at the Ichiraku ramen stand with her teammates and her former sensei. She was a mother and a sister figure to her friends, scolding them, laughing with them, crying with them. The Uchiha took note that Sakura was very family oriented.
Itachi was fully aware of the kunoichi's attraction to his younger brother, but he refused to think about it. At the mere thought of it, Itachi's chest panged strangely and he clutched it instinctively, as if he could squeeze the pain away. It had no effect, of course.
Could it be…? he thought. No… that's ridiculous.
Sakura, being the attentive student she was, realized she was coming across the Uchiha heir almost every where she went. She could call it coincidence or she could call it stalking but whatever it was, it was extremely flattering yet at the same time, overbearingly creepy.
He sat across from her at the library – how could she not notice! – and absorbed his scroll like a sponge to water. The rosette would strike a conversation, but felt somewhat rude to disturb him from his trance and decided otherwise. It was difficult to concentrate on her studies, but she managed all right. As long as she didn't look at him, she would retain all of the learned knowledge. Those deep pools of onyx had a hypnotizing aura…
As Itachi's sudden, subtle appearances became a common occurrence, Sakura noticed something. She began to compare Itachi and Sasuke.
Sasuke looked more boy than man, his face rounder, fuller, innocent (or how innocent Sasuke really could be). He was childish and immature at times, particularly around Naruto, always striving to be the better person, more accomplished, more talented. He was generally indecisive, choosing the path most likely to please his father, but when he discovered his new goal, he rushed to it, head first, ignoring the dangers, the rules and the death possibilities. An adolescent youth.
Itachi, on the other hand, was in every essence a man. He held himself as if he were royalty, his facial features radiated aristocracy and a high upbringing. There was no need for him to try to be successful, for he already was as ANBU captain and Uchiha heir and every new experience for him was accomplished quickly and accurately. If he strived to complete a task, it was not for any particular someone, such as his father, but for himself in order to better himself. A man.
Kyaa, Itachi-san is sexy! Inner Sakura shrieked. Sakura slapped her alter ego for making it worse. She began to notice more and more about the elder Uchiha, every little thing that made him indisputably more appealing.
It took everything in Sakura's power not to blush in Itachi's presence. The library visits were harder to endure; Sakura tried not to look up, she tried vigorously. Once, however, she looked up and caught Itachi's gaze piercing through her very soul and blushed. The pink that matched her hair painted her cheeks for a moment, embarrassing Sakura to no ends. She willed the blood in her face to settle and so it did.
The omnipotent Uchiha undeniably noticed the bright color staining Sakura's cheeks, which made the situation more awkward, more uncomfortable. With her breath lodged in her throat, the medic hurriedly gathered her belongings and made a mad dash out the library.
She'd no idea she'd left a belonging of hers.
Later in the day, while she was making rounds in the hospital, the nurses and assistants crowded and mobbed her, all squealing excitedly. She caught one reoccurring word: Itachi. Her eyes visibly widened; whether it was fear, anticipation or exhilaration the nurses did not know except whatever it was drove her to flee to her office.
There, Sakura was greeted by the Uchiha heir, sitting casually atop a clean corner of her desk, twirling a skinny scroll between his fingers. The kunoichi recognized it as her note-taking scroll. She had left it at the library when … oh…
"Ah, thank you very much, Uchiha-san."
"Itachi." He stared into her eyes, into her thoughts, her soul. Emerald met onyx in a hypnotic dance. Sakura was breathless. Itachi fared no better than she.
"…?"
"You may call me Itachi."
"O-Oh," Sakura stammered, abruptly pulling her gaze away from his, suddenly finding extreme interest in the crack in the floor. "Thank you, Itachi-san."
The two stood in a deep fog of awkward silence until Sakura exhaled slowly, clearing the air. She struck up conversation hesitantly, nervous for his reply or perhaps even lack thereof. He answered smoothly, calmly, revealing the bare minimum but still answering her questions.
The talk extended far into the limits of Sakura's unannounced lunch break, and Itachi understood the message when the kunoichi's eye flickered nervously, subtly to the analog above his head.
He stood up and pressed his palm to the door, suddenly spiking his chakra dangerously high. A surprised squeal emitted from the opposite side; Sakura and Itachi exchanged understanding and annoyed glances.
"It was nice talking to you, Itachi-san," Sakura said pleasantly, giving a small, sincere smile. Itachi smiled – or rather, smirked – and departed from the hospital. The kunoichi let out a relieved breath of air, only to be mobbed by the interns and her fellow nurses.
Itachi did not know if he should return to the hospital – after all, the meeting and the conversation was totally unexpected. Would he surprise her if he came back? Most definitely. But… he had to find some way to revisit.
All this time, Shisui had been particularly attentive to his cousin, wondering where he disappeared to for most of the day (when they were not busy on missions, of course) and made it his goal to discover Itachi's hidden motives.
Unfortunately, Itachi did not pose much of a challenge.
"Whoever is this woman, Itachi-chan, and how did she get a hold of you?"
Itachi pondered his cousin's choice of words… "woman". That was what Sakura was, was she not? Not a little girl who watched from the sidelines, but a woman on the front line who could manage herself responsibly. This only made Itachi pursue his goal even more.
Shisui caught his younger cousin's attentive and somewhat possessed stare at the pink-haired woman, noticed the glint in his cousin's eyes when the woman would talk to Itachi's otuoto, a fierce glint of … no…
Was it jealousy?
Feeling sympathetic for his dear cousin's dilemma, Shisui proposed a plan that, in his opinion, was beyond genius. Itachi listened to it with as much rapture as he could possibly muster. At first, Shisui believed that Weasel-chan had not taken heed in his advice, but when Itachi approached him a week later, asking if they would like to spar, Shisui grinned and took off to the training grounds.
After an hour of grueling sparring, broken bones, blooming bruises and bloody lacerations, the two Uchiha decided to call it a day.
Shisui walked to the Uchiha district. Itachi walked to Konoha hospital.
For the next week, Itachi did not return, leaving Sakura anxious and over prepared. She went through mental conversations with him, planning on what to say, how to act, how to smile. As if she needed help with her smile.
Then, unexpectedly, the elder Uchiha landed in the hospital once more, bloody and battered. And Sakura said the first thing that came to mind, "I thought you were more responsible than this!" Then she blushed and brought her hands up to cover her mouth, fearful that she would say something else unplanned.
He merely smirked – weakly, as that was all he could manage – and rested on the recovery table, his mesh undershirt cut open to reveal several lacerations that seemed to be giving him no troubles.
"How did you get these?" Sakura questioned softly, tracing her fingers lightly over the open flesh. Itachi suppressed his shivers. "These look …" She paused, telling herself that if he had done what she thought he had done, then he was plenty stupid and maybe a little ridiculous.
"?"
"Self inflicted," Sakura stated, a twinge of disappointment and accusation rung in her tone. She increased pressure on Itachi's open wounds; he winced internally.
"My cousin was especially ferocious today," Itachi commented, feeling the warm, soothing touch of Sakura's healing chakra unexpectedly trace over his lacerations, mending the tissue and skin together.
Sakura finished healing the rest of his wounds – which he seemed to possess all over his body – and sat him up. He felt a content happiness under her gentle ministrations, her smooth fingers ghosting over his back while he shifted to a sitting position.
"Tell me, why do you adore my otuoto so much?" Itachi probed. Sakura, taken aback, stepped back one step and a creeping blush rose to her cheeks.
She mumbled something unintelligible to the air, but Itachi's keen ears picked it up. And he smiled. Truly smiled – something unachieved by him in many years.
Sakura looked up and caught a breathtaking sight. He strode over, uninjured and very uncharacteristically, hugged her smaller form to his. The kunoichi panicked in his iron grip but when she felt his chin resting lightly on the top of her head, she began to breathe again and laid her head on his chest.
"What does this make us?" Sakura asked quietly, trying to disturb the wonderful moment as little as possible. Itachi looked to the ceiling as if the answer was written there for him.
"Mm. Whatever we want to be," Itachi replied, holding her gently. Sakura delighted in his choice of pronoun: "we."
Were they a "we" now?
Was there an "us"?
After that day, Itachi began to frequent to the hospital for the next week or so, unscathed and uninjured in any way, shape or form. If she was out on a mission, he knew it and she for him. But normal, not-mission days, he brought her lunch and they sat, curled in each other's arms, conversing and laughing and smiling.
No one knew of the relationship – not Kakashi, not Naruto, not Sasuke, not Tsunade – and Shisui only possessed a small inkling. And he wouldn't take a chance in following Itachi, not again, not if he valued his life.
Sakura found Itachi's strange hidden humor behind his serious façade and laughed. She was the only one who did. Itachi reveled in her laughter, the melody that stirred his senses and pricked his ears. And for it, he kissed her in thanks.
Their first kiss was somewhat of an uneventful one, yet very bright, very powerful and one the two would recall possibly forever.
Itachi was lounging behind the locked doors of Sakura's office, munching on an onigiri he had prepared for their lunch. His rosette was slightly tardy – she still had hospital matters to attend to – and he excused her lateness.
He heard the lock click open and Sakura rushed in, her eyes glowing brightly at the sight of him. In two fluid steps, Itachi had strode over before her and placed his hand over her head, closing the door behind her.
Then he kissed her.
His lips met hers in a passionate exchange and Itachi felt his heart swell to press against the confines of his ribs. Sakura, at first shocked with widened eyes, melted into the kiss and let all inhibitions fly away. The two remained till Sakura pulled away for a gasp of breath, panting, clutching at Itachi's shirt.
"Itachi…"
She met his eyes hesitantly and was amazed at how fiercely Itachi's onyx orbs burned. She felt herself grow hot under his gaze. He devoured her, captured her, enslaved her all with a single glance.
Conversely, Itachi had belonged to Sakura from the start.
The Uchiha heir became a frequent houseguest to Sakura's tiny apartment. His clothes were left there at times, his weapons, his books. Sakura could only silently thank her mother for buying her the twin-sized bed.
Itachi visited so often, Sakura thought it strange when he actually went to the Uchiha district for sleep. She brought home movies, sweets and bubble bath, he cooked meals and did some chores. The two lived soundly as a couple, their arguments trivial and far and few between.
Shisui, of course, noticed that Itachi was more peaceful and that an expression of serenity had taken permanent residence on his face – that is, until Shisui began to pester his cousin about it. Itachi said nothing but let his actions on the battlefield do the talking and Shisui understood. And accepted it.
And so, for four months, Itachi and Sakura lived together in her tiny, homey apartment. Sakura loved the fact that Itachi could cook delicious meals and Itachi adored it when she would give one of her chakra enhanced massages after a long day of stress. Then … one day…
Sasuke and Naruto and even Kakashi waited at the village entrance for their seemingly absent pink haired friend. They had been there since sunrise. It had been a couple hours of wait for the teme and the dobe and a half-hour wait for the Copy Nin.
"Where the hell is Sakura-chan!" Naruto cried, throwing his hands in the air. It wasn't like her to be late – so maybe… something had happened? There was no way Sakura would just forget about a mission.
Fortunately and unfortunately, Sasuke had the same line of thought. "Let's go check up on her," he suggested. The decision was unanimous. And so, the three teleported in front of Sakura's apartment, worried for their tardy friend.
"SAKURA-CHAN! GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!" Naruto shouted, banging on the door of Sakura's apartment. Silence.
Naruto waited. Silence. Sasuke waited. More silence. Kakashi waited. Even more silence.
Finally, Sakura opened the door and closed it behind her, looking as if she had just gotten out of bed. Her hair was sticking up and disheveled and she was still in her night clothes – an oversize tee and shorts. Wait… Sasuke had seen that shirt somewhere before…
"Yes?" she panted.
"Sakura, you look like you just got out of bed," Kakashi noted. Sakura blushed, embarrassed, and tried to comb down her wild mane of pink locks.
"Did you forget about the mission, Sakura-chan?" Naruto chastised. He was a little happy at the fact that their mother-son roles had been reversed.
"I did not!" Sakura argued. "I … I overslept. I'll go get ready now…" She turned around quickly and tried to shut the door behind her. It then struck Kakashi that she was hiding something. Best not to probe, though…
"Wait, Sakura." Sasuke had caught the door before it met the frame and pushed it open again. "Where did you get that tee – "
He was unable to finish his sentence. Instead, he stood, flabbergasted with his mouth gaping open and closed like a fish out of water. Walking calmly out of Sakura's room was Sasuke's aniki, shirtless, his hair down and around his shoulders.
Sakura could only guess why Sasuke and Naruto were gaping. She silently thanked Kakashi for being so unobtrusive.
"Sakura-chan! Why – Why is this … this … Uchiha here! At your house!" Naruto exclaimed in outrage. Itachi smirked and hugged Sakura, who was still facing her stunned teammates, tucking her head under his chin.
"Aniki! Wha - ! Why - ?" Sasuke's eyes widened to the size of plates, the cogs in his brain frozen as he tried to comprehend the scene in front of him.
Kakashi said nothing for he had already suspected this. There was a reason he was jounin.
"Ah… Itachi-kun," Sakura breathed, looking up to find him gazing upon her teammates icily. His grip tightened on her waist and she felt his heartbeat.
"Excuse us, gentlemen," Itachi said smoothly. "But if you could allow the lovely Sakura-chan here a few more minutes…" He didn't finish his sentence; the elder Uchiha closed the door on the three and locked it with an audible "click"!
Inside, Sakura chastised Itachi for doing what he did, but was quickly silenced by a pair of soft lips on her own. She clutched at him and forgot why she was angry.
Naruto whirled on Kakashi and shrieked, "Can't you do something about this, Kakashi!"
Kakashi shook his head, hiding a smirk. "Uchiha-san's ANBU. I'm Jounin. Sorry."
Sasuke stared at the door, still unable to process what had just taken place. The hell - ?