Part Two

She sleeps until midday, when the sun is high overhead, filling the room with golden light. Sakura wakes, yawns, and stretches. The servants have been washing her same four kimonos—all patched and frayed, except for her mother's wedding silks. Today she wears Okaasan's blue kimono, the only thing she owns that she feels the least bit pretty in. It fits better after a week of good meals, and she smiles as she dresses. Last night is still much on her mind, and she hopes that Sasuke is thinking of her too.

Sakura finds him in the training yard, dueling Kakashi. This time his master wins, with a swift, decisive strike to the ribs. Sasuke doubles over, clutching his left side, and gives Kakashi the foulest look she's ever seen. (So he's a sore loser; this is good to know.)

After his sensei leaves, Sasuke walks over to her and says, "You're finally awake."

"I was up late," she says, smiling. Sakura wraps her arms around his neck. Stands on the tips of her toes to close some of the distance between their heights. She expects him to lean down and kiss her, but he doesn't. Instead, Sasuke takes a step back, so that she's forced to let him go.

Sakura tilts her head to the side and asks, "What's wrong?"

"I'm fine," he says stiffly.

"But last night—"

"Do you want to train?" he interrupts.

"No," Sakura says. "I want to talk."

Sasuke looks away from her. "There's nothing to talk about."

When Sasuke comes to bed, she turns away. He puts a careful hand on her shoulder, silently entreating her to face him, but Sakura remembers the way he brushed off her affection this morning. As if she is good enough to touch at night, but not in the light of day. Then he kisses the nape of her neck, a soft apology pressed to her sensitive skin, and she weakens. Sakura lets him turn her over, so that she's on her back beside him. There's just enough moonlight coming in through the windows that she can see the shape of him above her, if not his features. She reaches up and traces Sasuke's cheek, exploring his dark-hidden beauty with her fingertips.

Slowly, softly, he presses his mouth to hers, giving her ample opportunity to refuse his advances if she wishes to. She's still angry and more than a little hurt, but Sakura kisses him back.

I could touch you forever and never grow tired of it.

At breakfast, Sasuke says, "Suigetsu is going to town for supplies tomorrow. If you want to write a letter to your family, he could deliver it for you."

She smiles. "Thank you. I'd like that very much."

Sakura starts her letter with promises that she's being well taken care of; she even brags about the luxury of the castle to help soothe her father's and sisters' fears. Ino she thanks again for their mother's kimono, and she tells Karin how much she misses brushing her unruly red hair. Sakura swears that she isn't being forced to stay any longer than she wishes, and that she'll come home as soon as she feels her debt to Sasuke has been paid. A lie, that, because it's not obligation but desire that's keeping her at the castle now.

She ends up writing five pages, and when she hands over the envelope to Suigetsu, he laughs, saying, "Are you sure you don't want to have this book bound?"

"Oh shut up," she says. "You better go to town before I throttle you."

"I've seen sacks of rice more intimidating. Heavier too," Suigetsu says, grinning.

Sakura pops him upside the head, too gently to be anything but teasing. "I'll have you know that Sasuke has been teaching me kenjutsu, and if you keep bothering me I'll make sure you regret it."

Suigetsu shrugs. "If you don't stop threatening me, you'll have to go without the gifts Sasuke told me to pick up for you in town."

"You're kidding?" Sakura asks, suddenly sober and slightly embarrassed. "Surely he knows that living here is gift enough for me."

"Apparently not," Suigetsu says. He taps her on the head with her own letter and says goodbye.

Once he's gone, Sakura searches the castle for Sasuke. She finally finds him in the library, reading a thick-spined book of folk tales.

"Suigetsu says you sent him to town to get gifts for me," she says, without preamble.

Sasuke keeps reading. "Suigetsu needs to learn to keep his mouth shut," he says evenly.

Sakura walks closer, and when he still doesn't look at her, she plucks the book out of his hands.

"That was rude," Sasuke says in a colorless voice.

"So is refusing to make eye contact," Sakura answers reasonably. "Surely you know that I'm endlessly grateful already? That I don't need presents. That I don't need anything anymore, thanks to you."

Sasuke grabs the book back and says, "The gifts are perfectly practical, I promise."

Somehow, Sakura doubts that his idea of practicality aligns with hers.

Suigetsu returns the next day, bearing three letters, and Sakura tears at the envelopes, greedy as a magpie with silver. Otousan is relieved to hear that she's well, while her sisters demand more details of the castle in the woods, and of the mysterious man who presides there. Sakura determines to write another letter soon, answering all of her family's questions and asking a dozen more of her own.

She's so excited about hearing from her father and sisters that for a moment she forgets about Sasuke's gifts. Suigetsu reminds her with a gentle hint that she might find something to her liking in her room.

Sakura hurries upstairs, and as soon as she opens the door she gasps. Laid out on her bed are five new kimonos, each one more lovely than the last, colored sage green, peacock blue, slate grey, and pale pink. The last is a rich, deep red patterned with cherry blossoms, her namesake. A garment more fit for an empress than a simple farmer's daughter.

Sakura wears the green kimono to dinner that evening, and when she sees Sasuke she hugs him. He startles at the contact, as he always does outside of the darkness of her bedroom, but he tolerates her touch with good humor. "I take it you like your presents?" he asks.

"I love them," Sakura says. She looks up at him, smiling. "You're spoiling me rotten, do you know that?"

"That's the point," Sasuke says, and in an uncharacteristic show of affection, he tucks her short hair behind her ear. "You're due a little spoiling."

There's something almost sorrowful in his expression, but Sakura doesn't want to ruin the moment by asking what she's done to sadden him.

Sakura stays with Sasuke for another week, and then two more, as autumn turns to winter. Leaves red, gold, and brown fall to the earth, stripping the trees naked. She spends her time reading from the near-endless library, practicing her kenjutsu, playing shogi with Suigetsu or Kakashi, and writing to her family (who have moved back to the very farm they lost years ago). Her days are filled with leisure and hot meals aplenty, and her nights are a tangle of kisses, caresses, and sweet dreams. Afraid that she might scare Sasuke off if she speaks to him, Sakura decides not to talk about what happens in the dark hours.

On the first day of December, she sits on the porch and watches snow fall. Dusting the frosted grass until the ground is buried in two, three, four inches of it, and there's nothing but glittering white in every direction.

Sasuke brings her a cup of hot tea and sits in the chair beside her.

Sakura says, "It's so beautiful. Like something from another world." She laughs, takes a sip of her tea. "Here I am, wearing silk, living in a castle, talking to the richest man in the prefecture. I can barely recognize my life."

"Is that so bad?" Sasuke asks.

"No, it's not." She runs a hand through her hair. "You know, the day you came to make your offer, I was on my way out the door. Ready to sell myself to save my sisters from starving."

Sasuke stiffens beside her. "I'm sorry it came to that. I should have helped you sooner."

"Don't worry over it," Sakura says. "You came just in time."

"I remember what it's like, to be truly hungry," Sasuke says. "After Itachi killed our parents, I ran away from home. Wandered in the woods for days, lost, trying to find my way to town. I ate berries and roots, but that only made me sick and hungrier. I thought I was going to die in the forest, all alone. Until I wandered onto your family's farm, and you saved me."

Sakura smiles. "I guess that's just what we do for each other."

"How did you survive so long?" Sasuke asks. "Being hungry like that?"

"We made meals out of whatever we could. Tree bark tea for breakfast, wild berries for lunch, rice for dinner. Until the rice ran out, anyway. I once caught a dove. It walked right into my hands, friendly and trusting. I killed it. Twisted its fragile little neck and cooked it up for Ino, my youngest sister." Sakura shakes her head, trying to dispel memories best forgotten.

Later, at night, when he comes to her room, Sasuke holds her close while she cries. Once she's too worn out to shed another tear, he wipes her cheeks, kisses her forehead, and holds her against his chest until she falls asleep.

The snow continues to fall well into the heart of winter. Suigetsu is forced to retire the horse-drawn carriage and instead make his trips on a sled pulled by sure-footed mules. He makes a supply run once every two weeks, and each time he goes to town, he returns with new letters from Sakura's father and sisters. And as the months pass, these messages request with greater and greater urgency that she come home.

"I'm selfish," Sakura says.

She's facing Sasuke in a shogi match. It's unusual for him to take time to play games (he doesn't have much patience where such frivolities are concerned), but today he's indulging her.

"Selfish?" he asks. "Why do you say that?"

"I should have gone home weeks ago," Sakura says. "My father misses me and worries about me, my sisters too."

Sasuke picks up a tile, turns it over between his fingers, toying with it. "Then why are you still here?"

Sakura smiles. "Like I said: I'm selfish. I want to stay with you."

Sasuke remains quiet for a long while. Then he makes his move, taking one of her pawns. Removing it from the board swiftly and cleanly, as if it never was. "I want you to stay too," he says.

She thinks about reaching across the board to touch him, but she knows he'll balk from her. For whatever reason, he only has the courage to allow her affection after dark, when he's hidden from her sight. Maybe it feels less real to him in the night hours, like an impossible dream he can dismiss later.

She waits in bed, awake and alert for over an hour. Just when she thinks he won't come tonight, the door opens, barely creaking on its hinges, then shuts behind her visitor. He joins her in bed, a man made of shadows and secrets. Countless times she has considered disrupting the heavy silence and turning on a light, dispelling the mystery of her nightly companion. Sakura knows with an odd sort of certainty that it is Sasuke, despite never seeing his face, but there is a part of her that worries she's wrong. That she has let some stranger kiss her, hold her, touch her.

She turns over, facing away from him. Sasuke places a gentle hand on her arm, coaxing her without words. Sakura closes her eyes and allows herself a moment not to think, to just feel. Lets him wrap his arm around her waist. His hard body is flush against her back, and his hand roams across the soft plane of her stomach, her hip, her thigh, then back up. Sakura shivers, nervous and excited, and presses herself against him. Sasuke plays with the strap of her nightgown, slides it over her shoulder, testing how far she'll let him go. There's nothing under this threadbare dress but her panties, and she knows what she should do—except that should doesn't line up with what she wants.

So Sakura takes the task out of his hands, sits up and undresses herself. She's thankful now for the darkness, because he can't see the blush that's coloring her cheeks. Sasuke pulls her onto his lap, and she wraps her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck. She loves the feel of him beneath her, warm and solid. He smells like a fire burning low in the hearth, half embers and half ashes, and when they kiss, he tastes of the fine sake served at dinner. Strong hands wander down either side of her spine, grip her waist, cup her breasts. At first he's almost too careful as he touches her there, gentle bordering on hesitant, and it makes her wonder whether he's ever done this before. Now wouldn't be the time to ask, even if she could bring herself to break the silence. But he gains confidence when she leans into his hands, encouraging him to keep going.

Sakura tugs at his shirt, and Sasuke pulls it over his head. It's her turn to touch, and she isn't shy about running her hands over his arms and down his chest, feeling the hardness of his flat stomach. For a moment she teases the fabric of his pants, but Sasuke catches her wrist, not ungently, and instead brings her hand to his mouth. He presses feather light kisses to her knuckles, her fingers, the heel of her palm. The barely-there contact leaves her breathless and wanting, and she decides she needs his lips on hers again. Sakura threads her fingers through Sasuke's hair, guides him back to her mouth, and kisses him until he makes a low sound in the back of his throat.

They don't sleep at all, too busy exploring one another to bother with rest, but when the sky begins to lighten from black to deepest blue, he breaks away from her. Cups her cheek one last time, and she can feel the tender sting of goodbye laced into that caress.

He leaves as quietly as he came in, an anonymous visitor whose touch she can still feel. She falls back onto her plush pillows, suddenly exhausted from her sleepless night, body tired but mind racing and wakeful, full with thoughts of Sasuke.

Sakura thinks he might not be an easy man to love, but she could manage it.

She blushes when she sees Sasuke the next morning. He may not have seen her nakedness last night, but he certainly felt it. Naturally, he treats her no differently, if kindly and pleasantly enough. One would never guess that just a few hours ago he was panting against her skin, making hushed noises of pleasure and frustration.

But Sakura remembers every moment, and she isn't as well-schooled at hiding her feelings as he is. Still, she keeps her thoughts to herself, privately treasuring the intimacy they shared, and says, "Good morning, Sasuke-kun."

"There isn't much morning left," he says, and there's the hint of an arrogant smirk lifting the corner of his mouth.

"I didn't sleep well," Sakura says. She sits beside him at the table, sips the mushroom soup being served for the first course of lunch.

"Nightmares?" he asks lightly.

"No, quite the opposite. I had a good dream, vivid and sweet, but I woke from it too soon." She looks at him, hoping for some slip in his composure, but Sasuke only eats his soup, as even and imperturbable as ever.

Sakura scowls, disappointed and a little angry that he won't recognize their last night together, if only in some subtle way. She's sick unto death of needless secrecy and silence.

Before thinking over it too much, she says, "I want to go home."

That gets his attention. Sasuke sets his spoon down and looks at her. "Just yesterday you said you wanted to stay here. What changed?"

Nothing and everything, she thinks. Sakura fidgets with a lock of her hair, which now nearly brushes her shoulders. Spring knocks on winter's door outside, and she has gained back every ounce of weight she lost to starvation last autumn. She's lingered here too long, letting her reckless heart hold her to a man who doesn't want to be loved.

Even so, she can't imagine not returning to this castle, to Suigetsu's crooked smile and Kakashi's wry humor. To him. "I'd like to come back, after I've visited with my father and sisters. If you'll have me, that is."

"You're always welcome here, Sakura," he says, and a warmth colors his voice that she's rarely heard before. "Suigetsu goes to town again in three days. He can take you home to your family."

"Thank you," she says, "for understanding."

Perhaps because she will soon be leaving, Sasuke spoils her even more than usual. He has the cooks make her favorite dishes for every meal and treats her more gently when they spar. Then he takes her outside and builds a snowman with her. The cold is almost too much to stand, but it's worth enduring to see Sasuke do something so carefree and purposeless. He's driven by such a singular, consuming ambition that it scares her, but Sakura tells herself to worry about that on another, less perfect day.

From sunrise to sunset she's happy, but the hours between dusk and dawn are nothing short of blissful. Sasuke seems hungrier for her, more aggressive and less tightly controlled. That discipline he clings to is slipping, and Sakura takes advantage of this weakness. The evening before she leaves, they end up completely naked with one another for the first time, Sasuke on top of her, his hips cradled between her thighs.

She kisses his throat, tastes his sweat on her tongue, and it means: Have me. Please have me.

Sakura can feel him, hard and ready, pressed against the softness of her sex. He wants this as much as she does, she knows it.

Instead, he draws away, sits up on his knees, breathing heavily. At first she thinks he means to leave, and every inch of her cries out in protest. Some sound of yearning escapes her, but it changes to one of pleasure a moment later. Sasuke has bent down and put his mouth between her legs. The warmth of his tongue makes her tense from head to toe, anticipation and nervousness making her body rigid. She grips his hair with one hand, her sheets with the other, and holds on with all the strength she has left.

Sasuke works her with his mouth, at first hesitantly, but with growing surety as she whimpers and gasps under his touch. The sensations build and build, until Sakura feels herself on the brink of coming, trembling and arching beneath him.

And then he stops. Withdraws from her, leaving her a shivering, unfulfilled wreck, and pulls his clothes on. Her heartbeat sounds in her ears, heavy and rapid, and it's on the tip of her tongue to ask him to keep kissing her there, but he's gone before she can find the courage to speak.

She lies awake after he leaves, wondering whether she did something wrong, until it dawns on her that this was not a punishment.

He left her aching and unsated on purpose. Trying to exact the promise of her return by making her need him in bed.

Sasuke didn't have to do that, because she couldn't keep herself from coming back to him even if she wanted to.

Karin hugs her first, and her embrace is as fierce as Sakura remembers. Then Ino wraps her arms around both of them, and she breathes in the scents of her sisters, spring flowers and ginger. When they finally let her go, Otousan picks her up and spins her around.

"We missed you," Ino says.

Karin nods. "I'm so glad you're home."

"I'm only here for a visit," Sakura says. "I'll be going back in two weeks, when Suigetsu comes to town again."

"What?" Ino's smile turns to a glare, quick as lightning. "Why?"

"Because I want to be with Sasuke. He's my friend, and I don't want to leave him alone." She's only sparing them a pitiful portion of the truth, but Sakura can't bring herself to say that she's falling in love with a man who won't even touch her under the light of day. That she wants to live with him more than she wants to come home.

Otousan frowns at her. "I've been worried sick about you," he says. "You shouldn't stay under that boy's roof because you feel guilty or obligated, Sakura."

"I don't!" she says. "Not anymore. It just doesn't seem right, to abandon him after everything he's done for us."

"So you'll abandon your family instead?" Karin asks. She plucks at the fine pink silk of Sakura's kimono. "Are you bought so easily as this?"

She slaps Karin across the face, her hand whipping out to smack her little sister's cheek without even considering the consequences. She regrets it as soon as her thoughts catch up to her actions, and she says, "Karin, I—I didn't mean to do that."

Karin only looks shocked, but Ino pushes Sakura, her sky blue eyes brimming with tears. "He's ruined you," she says. "What happened to my big sister?"

"Stop this," Otousan says. He's a quiet man, her father, but when he raises his voice, like he does now, everyone listens.

Sakura hangs her head. "I'm so sorry, Otousan."

Maybe Ino is right. Maybe Sasuke and his luxuries have brought out the worst in her, the selfishness and pride she's always pushed down to deal with one responsibility or another. It's not a possibility she wants to consider.

Neither Ino nor Karin talks to her the next day, but by the third evening of her visit, they come around. There's still a hesitance in the way they talk to her, a wall of distrust that was never there before, but conversation stays civil and happy enough.

"You've kissed him, haven't you?" Ino asks.

"What? No," Sakura lies.

They're sitting outside, blankets wrapped around them and spread out beneath them to protect against the chill of a dying winter. The stars overhead shine brightly against a canvas of midnight blue sky.

"Oh, please," Karin says, rolling her eyes. "You're the world's worst liar, Sakura. And besides, you love us too much to leave us behind for a friend. He's got to be more to you than that."

Every instinct she has tells her to keep lying, but these are her sisters, and how can she hope to regain their trust if she does nothing to earn it?

She tells them almost everything. How he visits her bed after dusk and always leaves before dawn lifts the shroud of darkness. That he won't acknowledge their intimacy during the day, but he makes up for it with his tenderness at night.

"What if you're wrong?" Karin asks. "What if it isn't him at all? You said there are other men at the castle. It could be Suigetsu or Sasuke's sensei."

"It's not," Sakura says. "I just know, all right?"

"Then it won't make any difference when you light a lamp," Ino says. "Promise that when you go back to the castle you'll do that."

Karin says, "Ino's right. You need to know for sure."

It's something she should have done a long time ago, Sakura knows. So she nods, takes her sisters' hands, and says, "I promise."

Author's Notes: I blame this update on joblessness and too much tea. I hope you enjoy my fairy tale SasuSaku. For suvirena, who requested a Greek mythology AU quite some time ago. :)