Part One

They are starving. Sakura knows this, can see it in the hollowness of her sisters' cheeks, feel it in the ache of her own empty belly. The rice is gone, and it has been so long since she ate fish or pork that she can barely remember the taste of meat. They drink hot tea, hoping to trick their stomachs into an illusion of fullness.

Ino and Karin lie in the bed the three of them share, weak as newborn kittens, too tired even to cry. They have given up, so exhausted and pained by hunger that they no longer fear death. Sakura wants to lie with them, but she knows that if she does she may not have the strength to get up again.

There is a full-length mirror on the wall, too cracked to sell, but it reflects the truth back at you clear enough. Sakura stands in front it and examines herself. Fair skin, wide green eyes, a too-slender figure. She is a beautiful girl, and if she discards humility, she can see that she is perhaps the prettiest of her sisters. Hunger shows in the way her best yukata falls looser than it should, but Sakura doubts this will matter. She pinches her cheeks to bring color to her pale skin, brushes her hair, stands straighter.

She once had hair near as long as Ino's, but she cut it in the summer and sold it to a wig-maker—it fetched a fine price, for its unusual color—and now it falls in a short, pink fringe around her jawline.

Maybe her body will fetch a fine price too.

She has to leave before Otousan comes back, or else he'll stop her. So Sakura looks one last time at her little sisters—sleeping, innocent, dying by inches—and gathers up her courage.

I have to do this. There isn't any other choice. I have nothing left to sell but myself.

But when she opens the front door, there is someone standing on the stoop already. A handsome young man around her own age, eighteen or nineteen, wearing well-made clothes of blue and black. There is something familiar about his dark eyes, but she can't quite place the connection between present and past.

"What do you need?" Sakura asks.

"Just to speak with you," he says. "Can we talk somewhere private?"

Sakura steps outside, closes the door behind her as quietly as she can. "Why should I take you anywhere? You haven't even introduced yourself?"

He frowns and says, "You don't recognize me."

"No." Sakura wraps her arms around herself, guarding against the early morning chill. Autumn is here, and it's only dawn. The cold of the night has yet to give way to the warmth of day.

"I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he says.

Sakura damns her own insolent tongue. She has been speaking—rudely—to the richest man in the prefecture.

"Will you let me in now?" he asks.

She nods, invites Sasuke inside, and leads him to the kitchen. They sit in rickety, wooden chairs around a much-abused table, and suddenly all Sakura can see is the evidence of her poverty: stained, ragged dishtowels that he probably wouldn't allow servants to dust with; the lack of a sink, because the house has no running water; the conspicuous absence of food, a kitchen's signature feature.

"What brings you here?" Sakura asks.

"You," he says.

She's lightheaded from hunger, and she doesn't fully have her wits about her. Sakura waits for him to elaborate, certain she misheard or misunderstood.

Sasuke props his elbows on the table, laces his fingers together, and says, "If you'll return to my home with me, I'll make your family as rich as you are poor right now."

Fear twists her empty stomach, but she forces her face to remain cool, unreadable. There's only one thing a man like this could want from a girl like her, but if she shows her trepidation or disgust, it could cost her loved ones their lives. So she reigns in her temper and asks, all business, "How much money are we talking about exactly?"

He looks mildly surprised for a moment, as if this isn't the response he expected. "Enough for your father and sisters to live comfortably, in a new home, until they're old and grey."

"How long would I have to stay with you?"

"I'm inviting you to come, not forcing you to remain," Sasuke says. "You can leave whenever you wish."

"And if I wish to leave in a week?" she asks.

"The payment remains the same," he says.

"Then I'll do it." She'd been a heartbeat away from prostituting herself to the nearest stranger for a hot meal and enough coins to buy the same for her family; this is a much better bargain, unseemly though it is.

"You don't have to decide now," Sasuke says. "Think on it for a week, and if you're certain then—"

"My sisters might not have that long," Sakura says bluntly. "I'll come with you and—and do whatever you ask."

He scowls, as if she was refusing his offer rather than accepting it. "Sex isn't what I want from you, if that's what you think." Sasuke stands, pulls a small drawstring bag from inside his cloak, and places it on the table before her. "This is yours to keep, even if you change your mind. I'll send a cart to pick you up in the morning."

Without waiting for her to escort him to the door, Sasuke sees himself out. Once he's gone, Sakura opens the little black bag and dumps its contents onto the kitchen table. Fat, golden coins spill out, bright and lustrous against the scratched wood, and the promise of more hinges on her word.

Otousan rages and her sisters cry, begging her not to go, but in the end Sakura says, "It's my decision to make. I'm doing this."

For the first time in ages, her family eats a proper breakfast. Grilled fish, miso soup, rice, and tamagoyaki. It's hard when she's so hungry, but Sakura eats slowly and carefully, just as she had at dinner last night, in an effort to keep her food down.

Then she packs a small bag, mostly because she has little to choose from—so many of her things have been handed down to Ino and Karin—but Sakura reminds herself that she won't need much anyway. If Sasuke wasn't lying, she'll be allowed to leave his company soon.

Ino places a cloth-wrapped bundle on the bed, and Sakura knows without looking what it is: Okaasan's wedding silks.

"I can't take that," Sakura says. "Our mother wanted you to have it."

"Well now I'm giving it to you," Ino says. She smiles, but there are tears in her eyes. "You can't go to the Uchiha estate looking like a pauper."

"We are paupers."

"Don't be stubborn, Forehead," Ino says. "Just accept it."

Sakura opens the bundle and touches her mother's kimono. It's the last fine thing their family owns, the only remnant of better times that remains in this falling-down house. A piece of the past crafted from sky blue silk (perfect for Ino's coloring).

"Thank you," Sakura says, and then she hugs her little sister.

Karin walks in, hurries over, and wraps her arms around both of them. "Come back soon, all right, Sakura?"

"I will. Promise."

I can't cry, Sakura tells herself. If I start, I might not stop.

An hour later, she waits outside, travel pack slung over one shoulder, waiting for the cart Sasuke said he would send. Clouds hang grey and heavy overhead, ready to rain at any moment. She forbade her father and sisters from waiting with her, and now she has nothing to do but think about the predicament she's in. Going to live with a stranger for some mysterious purpose.

She knows no more about Uchiha Sasuke than the rest of the prefecture. Only that he's obscenely wealthy, handsome, unmarried, and the last of his family line. Rumor has it that his older brother, Itachi, fled the country after their parents' deaths, and that Sasuke spent several years searching for him. He only just returned a few months ago, and no one has the courage or audacity to ask whether or not he found his brother. Regardless, he could have the company of any woman he wanted, so why pay for hers?

A fancy horse-drawn carriage (that Sakura wouldn't dream of calling a "cart") stops in front of her house. The driver is a white-haired young man with a charming, but crooked-toothed smile who introduces himself as Suigetsu.

Sakura climbs into the carriage before she changes her mind. Just think of Ino, Karin, and Otousan. I can do this. I can do this for them.

It takes the better part of a day to reach the Uchiha estate, and by the time they arrive Sakura is cold, anxious, and hungry. But she forgets her discomfort when she steps out of the carriage and gets her first view of the castle, a great construction of stone and wood five stories high. She has never seen a building half so large or grand, and this must show on her face because Suigetsu laughs. "That's how I felt the first time I saw it," he says. "Come on, I'll show you inside."

Sakura follows him and asks, "Did your employer tell you what he wants with me?"

"No," Suigetsu says, "but then Sasuke isn't one much for talking."

"He doesn't mind his servants calling him by his given name?" Sakura asks, wary, because this doesn't tally with what little she knows of rich people.

Suigetsu shrugs. "If he was the kind of man who cared, I wouldn't work for him."

She hasn't known Suigetsu long, but Sakura can believe this of him.

Inside, the castle is all gleaming hardwood floors and beams, ivory walls, paintings of landscapes, rice paper lamps. Wealth so great that it can afford to minimize its own grandeur, but it is still the most beautiful place Sakura has ever seen.

Suigetsu leads her to the dining room, and there she sees Sasuke sitting on a pillow before a perfectly polished table. A servant is just now placing a bowl of steaming soup before him, and to her great embarrassment, Sakura's stomach growls loudly.

"Have a seat," Sasuke says, and he motions to the pillow across from him.

She sits, smooths her blue kimono, and silently thanks Ino for her generosity. Sasuke is dressed all in unrelenting black, but his clothes are of the finest cut and quality. If she had worn anything besides Okaasan's wedding silks, Sakura would have felt a beggar by comparison.

Dinner is a feast unlike anything she has ever seen before. She had missed the first few courses, but Sasuke asks his servants to bring them out again so that she can try everything. Eel and salmon rolls, yellowtail sashimi, simmered vegetables with chicken, suimono soup and miso soup, steamed rice, grilled trout. All of it is prepared perfectly, and Sakura eats some of everything. She's careful to handle her chopsticks gracefully, the way Okaasan taught her, even though she's hungry enough to eat bare-handed.

Sakura expects Sasuke to explain his purpose in summoning her, but he doesn't speak one word throughout the entire meal. So once the dishes are cleared away, she asks, "Why am I here?"

"Because I wanted your company," he says simply (as if there is anything simple about this arrangement).

"But why my company?" she asks. "You don't even know me."

"I do know you," Sasuke says, and now there's a hint of impatience in his voice. "And you know me too, Sakura."

"I would remember if I'd ever met you before yesterday."

"You would remember if you met anyone by my name, but Uchiha Sasuke is not the name I gave you," he says. "I called myself Ryu."

For a long moment, Sakura can't speak, can't breathe. Memories she'd pushed away surface, and suddenly all she can see is Ryu, the boy who stumbled into the backyard of the farmhouse (the nice, cozy place where her family lived before Okaasan died of cholera and Otousan was injured in the war). He was filthy and too-thin, malnourished and dehydrated. So when he begged her for three things—water, rice, and secrecy—Sakura complied. She hid him in the old barn, brought him food, and at night, when she knew she wouldn't be missed, she snuck into the loft just to speak with him. They talked into the early hours of the morning, about things large and small, until the sky began to lighten, and then she returned to her bed. For a week, this became a ritual, but Ryu never would say where he came from or why he needed to hide. On the seventh night, Sakura fell asleep beside him, and when she woke in the morning, he was gone.

"You're Ryu?" she asks.

He nods. "I am."

She can see it now, the resemblance between the boy she knew and the man before her, if only in his dark eyes. Everything else about him has hardened, the softness of childhood worn away.

"What happened to you? Where did you go? How did you get back home? Why did—"

"The answers you want don't matter," Sasuke says, "so there's no point in asking those questions."

"Of course they matter." She stands up, walks around the table, and kneels beside him. Perhaps it's too forward, but Sakura cups his cheek. Sasuke doesn't lean into her touch, but neither does he pull away. Emboldened, she says, "I never forgot you. I thought about you all the time until—well, until I couldn't afford to anymore."

"I remembered you too," he says, "and I wanted to thank you for everything you did for me."

"Is that why I'm here?" Sakura asks. "Is that why you helped my family?"

Sasuke shrugs, as if his assistance is a small thing. "You helped me when I needed it most. I wanted to return the favor."

"I gave you well water and what food I could sneak from the pantry," Sakura says. "You've given my family wealth, prosperity, security. There's no way I can repay you for this."

"There's nothing to repay," Sasuke says. He stands, holds out his hand. Sakura takes it, and he helps her to her feet. "You saved my life. Now I've saved yours."

At home, she has to haul water from the spring, bucket by bucket, in order to take a bath. Not so here. Sakura lets herself soak in the ofuro, feet propped up on the edge of the wooden tub. She ran the water almost scalding, and she enjoys the nearly-but-not-quite painful sensation of being surrounded by heat and steam. After a day on the road she feels dirty, sweaty, and this is exactly what she needs to relax.

She washes her hair with a shampoo that smells like honeysuckles and her body with apple blossom soap. Then Sakura climbs out, dries herself with the softest towels she's ever felt, and dresses in her old, ragged nightgown. She goes to the bedroom, turns off the lights, slips beneath the bed covers, and snuggles a plush pillow. Sakura misses the warmth of her sisters on either side of her—even Ino, who kicks in her sleep.

Darkness surrounds her on all sides, a yawning black, wide and empty. Tired as she is, sleep won't come. Because she's thinking of her family and her place in Sasuke's home. Are her little sisters fighting over new kimonos? Bought and paid for though she is, does Sasuke think of her as a guest? A long lost friend? Something else, something more?

Part of her disbelieves that Sasuke could truly be the boy she helped, but no one besides she knew about Ryu. The only logical possibility is that he's telling the truth.

The door opens, and although it's too dark to see properly, she knows somehow, that it is Sasuke.

She should say something. Scold him for not knocking, ask him why he's here, but Sakura feels suddenly unable to speak, the words she should say caught somewhere in her throat. He walks to the bed. Close, closer, until he's right beside her. He doesn't say or do anything. All she can hear is his steady breathing, and all she can see is the shadowed outline of a man. After a long moment she realizes he's waiting. Waiting for her to invite or reject him, and she knows she ought to tell him to leave, but Sakura thinks of the night she spent next to Ryu—no, next to Sasuke. How she hadn't slept so peacefully before or since. So she scoots over, making room for him, and pats the place next to her. He climbs into bed, beneath the covers, and lies so near to her that she can feel the heat of him. But he doesn't touch her, makes no move to press his body to hers or wrap an arm around her waist.

Sakura realizes that the strange feeling she's experiencing is disappointment.

When she wakes in the morning, Sakura finds the bed empty. There is no indentation on his pillow, no sign at all that someone slept beside her. And when she sees Sasuke at breakfast, he makes no comment about the night before. It's almost as if she dreamed up a stranger to comfort her in the darkness.

Sakura spends her morning exploring the castle and its grounds. When she returns for lunch, Sasuke tells her about the history of his home, how it was once a stronghold for great warriors.

Then he invites her to the training yard and introduces her to a thirty-something, grey-haired man wearing a mask. A scar disfigures his left eye, and he holds himself in the same way Sasuke does, with quiet confidence and something approaching grace.

"I'm Kakashi," he says.

"Sakura."

Then he turns to Sasuke and says, "Ready to spar?"

"Always." Sasuke says to Sakura, "You don't have to stay. I just wanted you to meet Kakashi. He's the one who raised me after my parents died, who brought me home and—and helped me recover."

She smiles. "I'm glad you found each other. And if you don't mind, I'd like to watch."

Sakura doesn't regret staying. The fight between Kakashi and Sasuke, master and student, is almost like a dance. Their blunted katanas flit around each other, rarely touching, but when they do it makes a frightful noise, steel scraping against steel. She finds herself holding her breath, watching every move, taking note of the ways to dodge and block and attack. I want to do this,she thinks.

In the end, youth trumps experience, and Sasuke makes what would be a killing blow if the blades weren't blunted. Kakashi clutches his side, where the sword struck him, and curses his protege.

Sasuke ignores his master, approaches her, and asks her, "What do you think?"

He's sweaty and breathing hard from his exertions, but no less handsome for it.

"I loved it," she says. "It was brutal and beautiful at the same time. I've never seen anything like that. And you were brilliant."

Sasuke smiles, almost too subtly to notice, and says, "Thank you."

"Could you—could you teach me how to fight?" Sakura asks.

His expression barely changes, but she can tell that she has surprised him. "Why would you want to learn that?"

He wouldn't ask that of a man. "Well, why did you?" she counters.

"So I could kill my brother," Sasuke says plainly, as if this is not a strange answer.

Sakura can't help but think of Karin and Ino. Her sisters, whom she was willing to degrade herself to save. Nothing in this world could compel her to hurt either of them.

Before she can ask, he says, "Itachi murdered our parents. Cut them down in front of me." Sasuke's voice has grown tight, either with rage or sorrow. "I don't know why he left me alive, but it was a mistake. I'll find him someday."

"I'm so sorry. I can't imagine what that must have been like," Sakura says, but it feels like an inadequate response. How can "sorry" help mend a hurt as grave as that? She's experienced in the healing arts: which herbs bring down a fever, midwifery, how to stitch a cut. Okaasan taught her these lessons before cholera took her. But the wounds of the body and the mind are different things, and Sakura doesn't know how to begin to help him.

"Enough about Itachi," Sasuke says. "You want to learn how to fight?"

"Yes." She could better defend herself and her family if she was practiced in this art, and there's something about the beauty of blades dancing that calls to her.

"It took me years to master the sword," he says.

"I'm a fast learner, and I'll work hard."

"I'll teach you, if you want," Sasuke says, "but not matter how fast you learn, it's going to take time. How long are you planning to stay exactly?"

"I haven't decided yet," Sakura says. "Anyway, leaving doesn't mean we'll never see one another again. We're—well, I consider you a friend, Sasuke-kun. If you'd told me who you were from the start, there would have been no need to pay for my company. I'd have come willingly."

"You wouldn't have. Not with your family in the state they were in. You couldn't have left them behind," Sasuke says. "It's in your nature to help people, especially those you care about. No matter what it takes."

Sakura feels her cheeks grow warm, and she knows her face is probably as pink as her hair. "I'm not as good as you think."

"And I'm not good at all, but we're friends anyway, right?" he asks.

"Right," Sakura says, and she can't hold back a smile. "We are."

A week passes in luxury. Hot baths and sweet-smelling soaps. Three meals a day, and each one a feast. Forested grounds where she can gather goldenthread and rushfoil and dig for ginseng; by the time she goes home she'll have enough medicinal herbs that she can sell her services as a healer, the way her mother once did. Best of all, she has a soft bed and thick covers to protect her against the autumn chill.

When she isn't enjoying the splendors his castle has to offer, Sakura is training with Sasuke. He teaches her the fundamentals of swordplay, how to stand and how to hold your weapon. Basic moves that even a child could learn, but she doesn't complain.

And every night her visitor comes to sleep with her. He always arrives once the lights are out and takes his place by her side, darkness shrouding his face and form, but she knows it is Sasuke. They never talk and never touch, but she is comforted by his presence, by the sweet weight of him beside her.

Still, she's growing impatient. She wants to be held, cradled, loved. So on her eighth night at the castle, when her companion climbs into bed, Sakura moves closer and puts her arm around him. Rests her hand against his shoulder and draws figures there: a circle, a star, a heart. He's wonderfully warm, and when she presses a barely-there kiss to his throat, she hears his sharp intake of breath.

Suddenly she's on her back, Sasuke on top of her, his strong arms caging her in. Sakura wraps her arms and legs around him, feels him shudder all over. He kisses her neck and says a silent word against her skin that might be her name. A breathless sound slips past her lips, but it's soon muffled by his mouth on hers.

They trade kisses and touches all night, well into the early hours of the morning, but he pulls away before the first light of dawn can creep into the room. Sakura reaches for him, hoping he'll stay, but Sasuke leaves her alone in the darkness.

Author's Notes: Many thanks to uchihasass for reviewing this story. It's based on the folk tale "East of the Sun and West of the Moon," a variation of the Eros and Psyche myth. So I'm writing a fanfiction based on a Norwegian fairy tale, which is a derivative of a Greek myth, set in a Japanese influenced world. Got that straight? ;) For suvirena, who requested #45, Greek mythology AU, from the prompts list. This isn't exactly what you asked for, dear, but I hope you like it anyway!