"Sweet Nothings" - Fai/Saku + Sasu/Saku (Crossover)
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Summary: Uchiha Sasuke reluctantly accepts Princess Sakura’s invitation, and he and Haruno Sakura pay a visit to the Cat’s Eye Café--proprietor: one Fai D. Flowright. Of course, had Sasuke known anything about the blonde magician, particularly the fact that he was never one to resist a chance to get in some (mostly) good-natured teasing, the last Uchiha would never have set foot in the place.
WARNINGS: CRACK. CROSSOVER. FLUFF. RP TIE-INS. MY WEIRD SENSE OF HUMOUR. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
A/N: …THIS MONSTROSITY EXISTS BECAUSE its_game_time SORT OF TWISTED MY ARM INTO DOING IT and I was like AH HELL WHY NOT, and then…I shoved it away into my Documents file and tried to forget about it…but that didn’t work, so I gave up and gave in and just started writing…and then IT JUST KEPT GOING, a-and oh heavens, IDEK…I…I have no viable excuses, really…other than PHASE AND RP MADE ME DO IT, and this thread is both relevant and largely to blame. And so is this one and this one, both of which led up to that other (ASS-KICKING!) one. …So. So YEAH. /POINTS FINGERS AT!! 8|
……Also, to anyone who may care, YES OKAY FINE I ADMIT IT I am 130% a Fai/Sakura shipper. DEAL WITH IT & DON’T BITCH, OR DON’T READ & DON’T BITCH, YOUR CHOICE.
Additional Confessions: ...I was horribly tempted to add in Mokona, but he wasn’t a part of Phase’s prompt…and let’s face it, if I’d put him in, this fic would’ve ended in less than two pages in Word with both Sakuras running off with Mokona and leaving the boys high and dry. Because Mokona is a PIMP. CANON TRUFAX. Though TBH, Fai/Mokona (…or would it be Mokona/Fai?) is almost sort of canon, they get along so well. |D
And I may or may not have had WAY too much fun writing Fai in this piece. |D
*
[FaiSaku, SasuSaku. 'Sweet Nothings.']
The instant he stepped inside the café and the rich scent of freshly-baked sweets hit him like the 5:00 cross-town express, Uchiha Sasuke nearly turned on his heel and went right back out the door. It was only nearly because one Haruno Sakura had his arm linked firmly with her own, and he knew better than to make any sudden moves. Just because she could heal his arm as easily as she’d break it didn’t mean that either would be at all pleasant (and yes, he knew that from experience). Still, even if escape was out of the question, he couldn’t help stiffening a little at the overwhelmingly sugary smell hanging in the air.
The pink-haired medic-nin at his side didn’t seem to register either that stiffness or his discomfort; instead, she drew in a deep breath and released it as a sigh. “Mmm…it smells so good!”
Sasuke declined to comment, trying to be subtle about breathing through his mouth as he looked around the place. The Cat’s Eye Café was neat and tidy, airy but sensible-looking, somewhat more like a diner than a fancy restaurant. It had a fairly relaxed, homey atmosphere, and there were plenty of tables but still a sense of openness for all that, and there was a bar-like row of stools along the counter as well. From the outside, it almost looked more like a house than a shop, a melding of traditional Japanese architecture with a more Western, Edwardian style.
“Sasuke-san!”
Approaching them from across the shop, circular silver serving-tray held clutched to her chest, was a delicately beautiful girl. She had short, light brown hair, big green eyes, and an even bigger smile, and looked much the same as when Sasuke had seen her last, though maybe somewhat happier; he was perhaps a bit more pleased than he would admit, even to himself, that he couldn’t detect even the slightest hint of a limp in her stride. He thought her outfit was a bit strange-looking--a long, rather full dress with a frilly apron and lacy headband--but then again, he thought most of her garments were unusual, and he really had to stop thinking about her clothing or he’d remember the time he’d learned exactly how strange it was.
He gave the beaming girl a slight nod of greeting as she pattered to a stop in front of him, and somehow she managed to smile even wider before bowing politely. “I’m so happy that you came,” the Princess said once she’d straightened, reaching out to lightly, briefly touch his forearm, her eyes and voice both warm and soft. “And you must be Haruno-san,” she said, turning her attention to the kunoichi and giving another deep bow. “I’m Sakura, and this,” she gestured to her left, where a lanky blonde man was now leaning on the counter, “is Fai-san.”
Haruno Sakura had been frowning at the Princess ever so slightly ever since she’d touched Sasuke’s arm, though it faded (at least temporarily) as they all exchanged the customary greetings.
“Welcome to our café,” Fai said cheerfully, turning his laid-back but charming smile on the pink-haired kunoichi. “It’s always nice to have pretty girls stop by.”
The medic-nin blinked rapidly a few times, unused to flattery that concerned her appearance, then a faint blush stole over her cheeks, an almost shy smile coming to her face.
“Whatever you order today is on the house…provided you promise to come back again soon,” the blonde magician said with a friendly wink. His eyes drifted sideways to the now very disgruntled-looking Sasuke, and his smile broadened. “…But I’m afraid that offer doesn’t extend to Sasu-myuu.”
The Uchiha looked at Fai askance, his expression openly disbelieving, a perfectly clear nonverbal what the hell did you just call me? The same look was mirrored by the medic-nin at his side, albeit a more curious and less incredulous version of it; Fai just smiled innocently at the both of them before turning his attention to the Princess.
“It’s about time to close up for the lunch hour. I’ll finish with the last few customers and clean up a bit if you’ll flip the sign and make our guests some drinks, Sakura-chan.” His eyes drifted back to Sasuke, and though his smile didn’t fade in the least, there was the slightest contemplative tilt to his head. “Why don’t we sit outside?”
“Ah, yes!” Princess Sakura gushed enthusiastically. “It’s a beautiful day-not too hot, but nice and warm and sunny! And the courtyard and garden out back is lovely…” She paused, looking at the two shinobi. “…That is, if the two of you don’t mind…?”
“No, it is a nice day,” the pink-haired kunoichi agreed, albeit just a bit stiffly. Meanwhile, Fai’s gaze hadn’t really left Sasuke, that mild, observant expression still in place; the Uchiha was making a point of ignoring him.
“Let’s go,” he said, stepping past the blonde without the barest sideways glance.
Ten minutes later found them all seated outside around a nice little cast-iron bistro table, all sipping on lemonade (except Sasuke, who’d selected green tea instead) and eating from a few plates of little sandwiches and pastries that Fai had quickly put together for them.
The Princess had peppered the pink-haired kunoichi with questions about her world, eagerly offering information regarding her own when requested, and the medic-nin seemed to be relaxing around her already. Sasuke drank his tea as quickly as could still be deemed polite, then sat back in his chair, arms crossed, remaining largely uninvolved in the conversation, despite the Princess’s best efforts to pull him into it. She turned smiles his way fairly often and addressed a few questions to him specifically, but when he answered them all in grudging, nearly monosyllabic responses, she backed off. She didn’t want to bother him, after all…
Though he’d been every bit as talkative as the girls at first, Fai had lapsed into a meditative silence for a minute or two, but a sudden, semi-cunning look flickered across his face as he lowered his lemonade glass.
“Sakura-chan.”
Both girls looked at Fai, whose smile widened a bit. “Hmm, I thought that might be the case…”
“Ah, it will be a little confusing since we both have the same name, won’t it?” Princess Sakura said with a pensive little frown.
“How about this,” Fai said holding up a finger, then leveling it at the pink-haired kunoichi--“Haru-san-or Haru-chan, for you,” he said to Sasuke with a wink that made the other man bristle, then pointed at Princess Sakura--“And Hime-san.”
“Oh, but…th-that’s so formal-sounding!” the Princess protested, flushing faintly in embarrassment. “You’re my friends, after all!”
Fai leaned forward a bit, resting his elbow on the table and cupping his chin in his hand. “Well then, perhaps just ‘Princess’?”
“You mean you’re really a princess?” the newly dubbed ‘Haru-san’ asked, blinking in slight surprise and shooting a why didn’t you tell me this look Sasuke’s way, which Sasuke quite convincingly pretended not to see.
The Princess nodded, but was quick to add, “But I’m not the princess of this world. The country I’m from is far away… The kingdom of Clow is a desert country, and it’s small with just a few lovingly-tended patches of fertile land…but it’s a wonderful place.”
That led right into talk of Suna, the girls comparing the customs, clothing, and even the governments of the desert nations. The Princess had just brought up the desert ruins when Fai interrupted with a casual-sounding, “You know, I think you’re right, Princess. Sasu-tan does remind me of Kuro-pii…”
Sasuke’s eyes narrowed as he gave Fai a suspicious look, though the Princess got a part of it in a brief glance before he returned his attention to the smiling magician. Even though that glance had been more uncertain and inquisitive than the hard, distrustful look he was keeping trained on Fai, it was still enough to make the girl rush to explain.
“…Ah! Kurogane-san is one of our travelling companions! He’s a swordsman, tall, and with black hair and red eyes, and he’s very strong-”
“-And he really doesn’t have much of a sense of humour,” Fai interjected smoothly. “It’s so easy to tease him…but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Actually, it just makes it even more fun!” His cornflower-blue eyes crinkled a little at the corners as he smiled at Sasuke, utterly undaunted by the undisguised glare he was now receiving. “What do you think, Sasu-rin? Does that sound like you?”
Sasuke had tensed just slightly out of reflex, though Haruno Sakura could tell that he wasn’t really intending to do anything; it would take a lot more needling than that to get a real reaction out of the Uchiha. Still, just in case, she placed a hand on his forearm, below the level of the table, the touch and her expression both calming and warning.
Meanwhile, Princess Sakura was looking anxiously from Fai to Sasuke and back. “Um…Fai-san, maybe we should bring out dessert…?” she hedged, then gained back some of her regular enthusiasm as she stood and added, “You were going to show me how to make the perfect parfait, so that we could serve them to Sakura-san and Sasuke-san!”
“Yes, that’s right,” Fai said, turning to her with a smile as he stood as well. “Though the desserts don’t have to be parfaits, if our guests would rather something else. Tiramisu, crème brûlée, cheesecake, crêpe suzette-”
“Parfaits would be just fine.” Haruno Sakura said with a firm smile. She’d looked the café’s menu over earlier, and had gaped a bit over seeing so many fancy, foreign-sounding desserts. For once she was actually grateful that Ino had insisted on dragging her to nearly every fancy new restaurant that had opened in Konoha over the past three years. The blonde kunoichi hadn’t wanted to go by herself, and had wanted to eat all those fattening desserts alone even less, but simply wasting the food wasn’t something she’d wanted to do either, so Sakura had gotten stuck finishing up more than her share of said desserts. But after Sai had made three extremely impolite, untrue (and for him, unfortunate) remarks about Sakura’s waistline in one week alone, Sakura had put her foot down, and made Ino start taking Chouji instead.
“Chocolate and cherries for me, please,” she added before Fai could ask. His eyebrows quirked upwards, an appreciative sort of acknowledgement…then he looked over at Sasuke again.
“And for Sasu-pyon? What’ll it be?”
“Nothing,” the Uchiha replied gruffly.
“Yeah, Sasuke-kun doesn’t really like sweets,” the pink-haired kunoichi chipped in supportively, and a little apologetically as well.
The Princess couldn’t hide a flicker of surprise at that, looking at Sasuke searchingly before quickly turning her eyes downward, remembering the cookies she’d made him as a thank-you gift. Had she forced them on him? And did it even count as a real thank-you gift if the other person didn’t like it?
Before she could think on it any more than that, Fai took her by the shoulders. “Come on, Sakura-chan, let’s get to work!” he said cheerfully, steering her gently but firmly back into the café. The Princess’ worried expression gradually shifted back into her usual smile as Fai held the door for her and ushered her back inside.
The Uchiha watched them go with dark, still-narrowed eyes. So this was the ‘Fai-san’ who had helped her with that dress… Somehow Sasuke wasn’t at all surprised by that, though for some reason, he found that a part of him really didn’t like that fact, either. Of course, he had no place in this--his approval or disapproval meant nothing, less than nothing overall. But he couldn’t help distrusting anyone with a smile that glib (he was hiding something, with a smile like that, he had to be), and Sasuke couldn’t deny that the thought of that magician with his hands on the Princess bothered him. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, because he already had someone important, and cheating wasn’t something that Sasuke would ever even consider. But even if it wasn’t quite romantic, he was still interested in the girl’s wellbeing. He did care. Maybe--probably--all right, definitely--more than he should.
“He really cares about her a lot, doesn’t he.”
Sasuke started a bit at Sakura’s casual-sounding comment, looking over at her quickly, wondering how--if--she knew what he’d been thinking. But the medic-nin was still looking after the Princess and the Magician, a knowing little smile on her face.
“…What do you mean,” Sasuke asked grudgingly after taking a moment to try (and fail) to figure it out for himself.
“Well, he just seems really protective of her, that’s all,” Sakura said with a shrug as she finished off her lemonade. “He really does his best to keep her happy and to stop her from worrying, and he’s always smiling at her, especially when she looks like she’s about to lose her own smile…” The kunoichi suddenly shook her head hard, giving a sheepish but still somewhat annoyed little huff. “Argh! What the heck am I even saying? I just mean…I don’t know what they’ve been through, but I think it’s pretty obvious that she’s important to him, and that he’s doing whatever he can to support her, that’s all.”
Of course, there was more than one way to support someone, she added to herself, sneaking a sideways look at Sasuke (who was looking rather skeptical and unconvinced). Smiles and sweets and light-hearted conversation worked for some…but just being there, a strong, silent presence, was a sort of support, too. And he had cared enough to invite her along on this little trip…and even though he clearly wanted to leave, and had wanted to leave half an hour ago, this time, he was staying. For her sake.
Her hand found his under the table, and he looked over at her as she threaded their fingers together, giving him only a smirk by way of explanation. He didn’t quite roll his eyes, and though he didn’t really return the smirk either, his hand tightened around hers just noticeably.
They stayed that way, enjoying the shared silence and the sight and scent of the garden stretching out before them, until the café doors swung open again, signaling the return of the other half of their party.
“And here we are!” Fai said as he swept across the cobblestone patio, balancing a heavily-laden serving tray like an old pro, the Princess following at his heels. “Chocolate and cherries for Haru-san~” He slid an almost mountainous sundae across the table with a grin. “Mango and blackberries for Hime-chan~” The Princess’s was considerably smaller, the kunoichi noted, and Fai’s was somewhere roughly in the middle. “And strawberries and extra whipped cream for me!”
“…And more tea for Sasuke-san,” the Princess added, holding up a fresh pot of green tea and looking to Sasuke for permission, waiting for his nod before filling his cup again.
“Uh…it looks…great!” the medic-nin said, though clearly she found the size of the thing somewhat daunting.
“Don’t worry if you can’t finish it all,” Fai said with a cheerfully dismissive wave of his hand, making the pink-haired girl shoot him an almost guilty glance. “Though of course, like I said, if it turns out you want seconds instead, it’s still on the house.”
The next few minutes were filled with the clink of spoons against glass, and giggles and hums of delight from the girls.
“Here, try some of mine!”
“Mm! Try some of mine, too!”
“These are really good, Sakura-chan!”
“Oh, don’t thank me, Fai-san did most of it, really.”
“See how sweets can make people smile?” The blonde man gave a happy little sigh, clearly addressing Sasuke. Sasuke, meanwhile, had already finished his second pot of tea, and was trying (and again failing) to not look like he wanted to be a hundred miles away at that very moment; the girls were so focused on the parfaits and each other, they practically were a hundred miles away, leaving Sasuke entirely at the mercy of the mischievous-looking magician. “Come on, Sasu-bun!” Fai said, leaning across the table to offer Sasuke a generous helping of his parfait. “One little taste won’t kill you, will it? Sakura-hime-chan worked really hard to get these just right, you know…you wouldn’t want her hard work to be wasted, right?”
Sasuke turned his head away in refusal, trying not to sneer too openly at the sugary spoonful. Sakura hadn’t been lying, he really didn’t care for sweets, but in this case, the idea of sharing silverware with the affectedly upbeat magician was even more abhorrent.
“Fai-san!” Their conversation (such it was) had apparently caught the Princess’s attention, and the Uchiha relaxed a little as the lanky blonde’s focus shifted off him and onto the Princess. “Please don’t force him…it’s all right. If he doesn’t like sweets, I don’t want him to make himself eat something like that.” She gave them both a small, hesitant smile. “He’ll just have to tell me what he does like, so I can make that for him instead next time.”
But Fai wasn’t one to give up that easily. “Now now, Princess~ You know it doesn’t hurt to try something new once in a while! It might be good for him in the long run, after all…and a flat refusal like that when you haven’t even tried something is really pretty rude.” Fai’s bright, high-spirited tone hadn’t changed even slightly, despite the fact that the words themselves had slipped from casual to almost accusing. “Unless…maybe he’s afraid to try new things? Is that it? How could a big, strong ninja be scared of something like a cute little parfait, Sasu-wanwan~?”
Thus far, Sasuke had been bearing up admirably under what was beginning to fall just short of verbal harassment, but the sheer stupidity of the accusation coupled with that last nickname seemed to be just a bit too much. Various cups and dishes chittered a bit as he brought a clenched fist down on the table, his lip curled in what was quite literally a growl. “Shut-”
And that was as far as he got before the grinning blonde gleefully crammed a heaping spoonful of strawberry parfait into his open mouth.
Sasuke’s eyes bulged, and he swallowed out of sheer surprise, nearly choking on half a strawberry as his anger dissolved into a desperate coughing fit. Haruno Sakura was instantly on her feet, pounding his back hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “Are you choking?” she asked with a clinical calmness, and when she could hear that his windpipe wasn’t obstructed, she continued to pat his back, repeating an utterly unruffled-sounding “Just breathe, Sasuke-kun” every so often. The Princess, meanwhile, had given him her own hardly-touched glass of water before dashing off into the café to get him more tea; the water-glass was empty when she returned a few minutes later, though still he reached for the hot beverage before she’d even offered it.
He downed the first cup of tea in one go, like a shot of hard liquor, and the second followed nearly as fast; the third he drank more slowly, and by then he’d mostly recovered, but for a faint rasping catch in his breathing. When he raised his head, his face was set in a dark glower that would make just about anyone with a decent sense of self-preservation take a hasty step backward--an expression that (almost impossibly) got darker when he found Fai beaming at him, all sunshine and flowers and innocent golden sparkles.
“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said lightly.
Had he been the type to goggle, Sasuke would have. As it was, his killing intent just ratcheted up another level (bringing it from ‘mildly murderous’ to ‘outright homicidal’).
The pink-haired medic-nin still standing behind him gave a visible shiver, and even the Princess looked at him a little apprehensively; Fai alone seemed unperturbed, or perhaps just oblivious, though anyone who really knew Fai also knew how unlikely that was, especially considering how blatant Sasuke’s push one more button, however small, and DIE vibe was. But Fai did so love to push buttons…
His wide, easy smile suddenly went even wider. “Oh my, Sasu-puu, you’ve got some whipped cream on your face-” With a smirk and a deft flourish of a napkin, Fai moved as if to dab it off the Uchiha’s cheek. “-Juuuust there-”
Well before the napkin made contact with any part of his face, Sasuke finally snapped. With a snarl, he practically exploded out of his seat, lunging across the table, upsetting all the drinks and what remained of the parfaits and nearly sending the table itself crashing to the ground, too angry to use any sort of shinobi skill in that instant. (Princess Sakura made a valiant attempt to keep the table upright, but it was Haruno Sakura’s excellent reflexes and insane strength that kept both table and Princess from a rather disastrous fate.)
Well used to that sort of violent reaction by now, Fai had been waiting for it, leaping away from the table and off the patio itself, evading the attack with ease; to him, the only surprise was that the boy had kept his temper as long as he had.
But maybe, he mused to himself as he dodged behind a rose trellis and deflected a kunai with one of their café’s silver serving trays, that was only because Kurogane seemed to snap at every little thing right away.
“Goodness, Sasu-chii certainly does have some scary faces! Just like Kuro-pin!” the blonde chuckled, fluidly dodging another pair of kunai and a fistful of shuriken before sending the serving tray sailing at the Uchiha so fast it blurred, fairly humming as it flew. It struck squarely in the center of Sasuke’s forehead, connecting with a solid, metallic spang, the younger man’s eyes going wide with shock as his body started to slump to the side--then disappeared entirely in a puff of smoke.
“…A copy of some sort? Not bad,” Fai said with a low whistle, a whispery but strangely melodious phwee sound. A moment later, he was darting down the path back towards the café, coming around from the opposite side of the decently-sized garden; he’d just stepped to the edge of the little decorative pond located at the garden’s edge when he found the tip of a sword hovering at his throat.
“Ah! Hello, Sasu-min! Looks like you found me.” Despite the slight waver in the blade held mere centimeters from his neck, Fai’s eyes and voice were almost unspeakably calm, and his smile didn’t falter in the least. “So…now that you have me, what do you intend to do with me? Phwuu-”
Whatever he saw in those pale blue eyes was enough to drain most of the heat from Sasuke’s anger, though the lingering irritation still remained, flickering and nipping at the edges of his restraint. The Uchiha glared up at the magician along his sword a moment longer, then scoffed quietly, lowering his blade and turning way. Much as part of him honestly did want to stab that bastard in the face for acting like such a moron half the time, he wasn’t that sort of-
“Sakura-hime-chan seems pre~etty attached to you, don’t you think? I wonder why that is…” Sasuke stiffened just slightly but didn’t turn back, and so missed Fai’s knowing smile. “I think Sakura-Haru-chan noticed it, too…she might even have been a little jealous.”
“Shut up,” Sasuke hissed, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword, though he still refused to look back. “You don’t know anything about us, so just shut up!”
“Uh-oh, looks like that struck a nerve-oh dear, you’re not the two-timing type, are you, Sasu-ran?”
Once again, Sasuke’s last thread of patience snapped without warning, and he whirled on the blonde magician with a vengeance, his blade already cutting a glinting arc through the air. Again, Fai had anticipated this, and caught the attack with (of all things) the metal pole from a nearby bird-feeder, though it took a sizeable chunk out of the cheap metal.
Although they were on the other side of the garden, the unmistakable sound of a fight had drawn the girls’ attention, bringing them both to their feet to hover at the edge of the courtyard proper.
“Shouldn’t we stop…” The pink-haired girl trailed off as she watched the smirking blonde almost playfully evade a flurry of Sasuke’s attacks. He’s obviously no amateur…with the way he moves, he’s seen his share of battles. But to keep up with Sasuke-kun like that-!
So absorbed was she in watching the fight (of sorts), the kunoichi started a bit when the Princess laid a gentle hand on her arm.
“Don’t worry…they’ll be fine,” the smaller girl said warmly. “Fai-san and Sasuke-san are both very strong…and I know neither of them really wants to hurt the other.”
“…Yeah,” the medic-nin said after a slight pause. It was true, Sasuke really could look out for himself, and yet, with the way Fai had sidestepped his attacks so effortlessly… “And if they do get hurt, I’ll be right here to heal them.” Right after I break their heads for being such dumbasses! she grumbled to herself as the Princess fairly beamed and thanked her for her help. Starting fights over nothing, and causing the people who care about them most all kinds of trouble… Really, it was all she could do not to go lay them both out on their backs right now.
She snorted. Honestly, men.
Meanwhile, Fai was still just barely keeping ahead of Sasuke, though he dodged each strike smoothly and easily, as if it were some kind of dance. “Hmm, you’re not exactly like Kuro-sama after all… You talk even less, for one thing,” he hummed, giving another little whistle as he parried yet another blow. “I think you might be even grumpier than he is, too! But even so, you always seem to take special care to be kind to Sakura-hime-chan…” He swung the (now heavily-dented) pole low to the ground in a rare offensive move, though it seemed more like a formality than an actual attempt to land a blow. “Why is that, I wonder~?”
“You’re one to talk, with the way you look at her!” Sasuke all but snarled, taking another slash at the still-smiling magician. “Why don’t you just tell her!”
A flicker of short-lived, entirely honest surprise crossed Fai’s face, a fleeting expression of being caught red-handed, though the ever-present smile soon swallowed it up again. “Oh my, Sasu-rinta really is the jealous type after all!” His eyes narrowed slyly, his smile growing the faintest of edges as he caught Sasuke’s blade with his makeshift staff, using his height to his advantage and holding them both in a deadlock as he leaned in little closer to speak in a stage-whisper. “…But which Sakura are you getting jealous over, really?” Then he laughed as Sasuke barred his teeth and jerked his sword free to take another swing at him, parrying the blow and then sliding backwards and away, using the pole to vault lightly up onto the second-story roof of the café. “You can’t have both, that would just be greedy!” he shouted down, waving cheerfully at the almost visibly-steaming Sasuke.
Moments later, Sasuke had joined him on the roof, staring across at that nauseatingly persistent smile. He let a frosty smirk turn the corners of his own mouth upward as he surveyed their surroundings--up there on the roof, the risk of setting something on fire was considerably less, what with all the open space and the roof’s baked-clay tiles. A fire katon should be just fine, he thought as his hands flew through the familiar seals.
“Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!”
At the very moment before he released the fireball, a series of clear notes rang out-the magician was whistling, Sasuke realised, but this time the noise was sharp and piercing, nothing at all like the lisping, clumsier-sounding ones from before.
Pwuuuu- Pweeee- Pwuuuuuuu-
It was hard to tell if the water had come from the decorative pond below, or the surrounding air, or even if it was really even water at all. It certainly moved like water, or at least nearly as fluidly, but whatever it was, it shimmered and spun, an almost instantaneous whirlwind surrounding the magician, a twirling flurry of scintillating particles-
And then, the fireball hit.
Flames snapped and leaped, and smoke momentarily obscured everything; oddly enough, Sasuke suddenly felt a bit strange and off-balance, his vision seeming to dim. Not again, he thought with a growl, crouching on the roof to rub at his eyes. As expected, it didn’t really help.
His vision still didn’t improve when the smoke finally cleared…but where there had been nothing brief seconds before, there was now what looked like a spherical cage of sorts encompassing nearly the entire roof--Sasuke included. Despite the graceful, delicate-looking whorls and curls and the numerous gaps in the design, the fireball must have broken against it like a wave crashing into a sea-cliff; there wasn’t even so much as a single singe-mark on the faintly sparkling enclosure.
And there, sitting on the ridgepole of the roof in the middle of the cage, his elbows resting casually on his knees, was Fai, looking utterly at ease and laid-back as ever.
“Wheet-whoo! You nearly got me that time, Sasu-chin! You’re really something else.”
Something else was almost precisely the term that came to mind when Sasuke looked around him. The vaguely icy-looking cage glittered and gleamed with a cold, otherworldly sort of light; he narrowly resisted the urge to shiver--not at the cold, but at the presence of such a powerful unknown. Because, try though he might, it was as if his chakra had simply been closed up, sealed off, shut away completely: still faint, still there, but just out of reach. He didn’t dare stand up straight, not wanting to be obvious about wobbling, since he’d been using chakra to augment his balance, so he stayed down in a semi-tense crouch, eyes narrowing to dark chips of jet; even the Sharingan wouldn’t work, which made it feel almost personal. But as he steadily met Fai’s somehow-cloudy-looking eyes and not-quite-sincere smile, the smallest measure of something like respect settled itself deep in his chest.
So this was what Princess Sakura had meant when she said magic…
“…I still don’t really like using any sort of magic,” Fai admitted quietly after a moment, inclining his head minutely, not really looking at Sasuke; despite his dulled senses, the shinobi could see there was an almost poignant sort of sadness in the older man’s smile. “Even this kind, which uses a completely different system than the kind of magic I was taught…but then again, maybe all magic really is the same after all. Who can say?” He whistled a few more wispy notes before turning his typical lighthearted smile on the largely incapacitated shinobi. “But then again, I couldn’t very well run the risk of having you burn down our café, now, could I…Sasuke-san?”
“Fai-san!” The blonde magician looked down to see the Princess calling up to him, her hands cupped around her mouth. “It’s time for Sakura-san and Sasuke-san to go!”
“Ah…looks like playtime’s over, hmm?” He glanced over at the rather miserable-looking shinobi, clearly amused by the younger man’s plight. “Too bad, eh, Sasu-chama?”
Sasuke just snorted, more than ready to be out of that all-too-confining cage; but Fai wasn’t done with him quite yet, and he was still a captive for a short while longer.
“I guess you’re different from Kuro-ton in more ways than I thought…” Fai mused as the cage slowly started to fade. “He gets angry a lot faster, but he doesn’t really mean it most of the time…whereas you…” The magician looked up at the clear sky overhead, watching the top of the enclosure vanish in a silent whirl of shimmering sparkles. “You don’t get angry nearly as fast, but once you’re seriously mad, you’re the type who won’t ever let it go, no matter what.” He turned a droll half-smirk over at the damningly silent shinobi. “Of course, I don’t really know any of that for sure! It’s just a guess…but then again, you aren’t denying it.”
By that time, the cage had all but vanished; when Sasuke raised his eyes to meet the magician’s clear blue ones again, his own had spun to blood red.
“…Just shut up. You talk too much.”
Fai chuckled as they both slid to the edge of the roof and dropped, catlike, to the ground. “Is that so? I’ll keep that in mind.”
After the Princess was satisfied that neither had been injured, Fai immediately draped an arm around the pink-haired medic-nin’s shoulders. “I’ll just borrow Haru-chan for a minute, if you don’t mind~ I thought you might want to take back some gifts for people on your world, and Sasu-ryun will be pretty useless since he doesn’t like sweets! No help at all! So do us a favour and stay out of the kitchen, okay~? Maybe go pick up those weapons you left in the garden or something.”
“Ah! I’ll help you look for them, Sasuke-san!” the Princess volunteered, hoping to draw attention from Fai’s unrelenting teasing, and she’d dashed off into the greenery before Sasuke could turn her down.
“Have fun, you two!” Fai called over his shoulder without looking back, ushering the slightly flushed kunoichi at his side indoors, only removing his arm to open the door for her and gracefully bow her through.
Sasuke closed his eyes to that sight, not quite on the level of needing to count to ten, though it was a near thing. (There was absolutely NO doubt in his mind that this was a set up, though why that supremely irritating magician would want him to be alone with the Princess, all things considered, had him thoroughly baffled.) Once his temper was firmly in check once more, he headed out into the garden after the Princess.
“Sasuke-san, I found one!”
Apprehension instantly lanced through a suddenly-tight portion of his chest (they were weapons after all, rather dangerous ones, and he didn’t want her to cut herself on accident), and with a rustle of leaves, he teleported to the area her voice had come from, arriving just in time to see her cautiously tug a throwing-star out of the ground.
“Oh, Sasuke-san!” she said as she straightened, brightening on seeing him and carefully holding the shuriken out toward him. “Look, I found two more already! Do you know how many you’re missing?”
“Three kunai and five shuriken total,” he admitted reluctantly. He would just as soon leave them there--they weren’t expensive by any stretch of the imagination--but this was her garden, and if there was even the slightest chance she might (perhaps literally) stumble onto one of them later on by mistake…well, he already felt guilty enough when it came to Princess Sakura. He didn’t need to make things any worse.
“…The other shuriken should be in this same area.” The kunai would be closer to the rose trellis. “Don’t cut yourself. If it’s stuck, leave it for me.” The Princess nodded in understanding, accepting the orders without question or comment, and soon they’d each found one of the last two throwing-stars. It only took Sasuke a few seconds to locate the kunai, thanks to both their size and placement, and he’d just finished tucking them all away when Fai’s voice floated out to them from the patio:
“Hello~? Anyone still out there~? You didn’t run off together, now, did you?”
Three of the newly-recovered shuriken whizzed through the air, skipping off the stones in the space where Fai had been standing mere seconds before. Undaunted, the magician scooped them up, holding two in between the fingers of one hand, and absently rolling the other across his knuckles as he raised his voice again.
“Haru-chan is probably at the front gate by now, you know. You should hurry, Sasu-tama, it isn’t nice to keep a beautiful young woman waiting like that! Shame on you!”
“Fai-san must really like you,” the Princess stated as they obediently made their way along the garden path, both trying to ignore the powerful sense of déjà vu supplied in part by their current surroundings.
Sasuke shot her a look fraught with incredulity, but remained silent. If anything, he’d felt unfairly put-upon, pestered, and even outright harassed, none of which had made him feel particularly liked. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The Princess must have read the skepticism on his face, because she covered a little laugh with her hand and explained, “Kurogane-san is the only other person Fai-san has ever used all those nicknames on…so he must really think you’re someone special. That’s just how Fai-san is…when he really likes someone, he just can’t bring himself to leave them alone.”
…When she put it that way, Naruto was a little like that, Sasuke supposed, albeit much less overbearing and not half as repulsively smiley. So really, it did make a twisted sort of sense…but that still didn’t make the blue-eyed magician any less infuriating.
By that time, they’d reached the edge of the garden, one final row of tall hedges all that separated them from the grassy expanse bordering the café’s patio…and the Princess came to a halt. Sensing that she’d stopped, Sasuke paused as well and looked back, his expression not quite curious or concerned, but distinctly less-blank than usual.
“…Sasuke-san…” The Princess took the two steps separating them tentatively, her cheeks a little pink, but her expression determined as she reached out to grasp his hand firmly. “…Thank you,” she said at last, perhaps a little shyly. “Thank you for coming today. I was glad to see you again…it made me really happy.” Her eyes were bright as they met his, and she gave his hand a little squeeze. “So…thank you.”
Even after she’d thanked him, Sakura didn’t let go--she didn’t seem to want to--and Sasuke found he didn’t quite have it in him to simply pull away from her.
“…Um…you can come back any time you want!” she added suddenly, growing flustered as she scrambled to find a reason for the fact that she was hanging onto his hand. “I’m sure Fai-san was just kidding about only Sakura-san’s food being free, but I get paid some too, and I wouldn’t mind covering your bill if he tries to take that joke too far-”
“Sakura.”
All it took was that single word and a not-quite smile from the Uchiha prodigy to make the Princess fall silent, waiting, half-expectant, and more than half-hopeful.
“…Onigiri.”
She blinked, jade-green eyes going wide. “...Eh?”
Sasuke looked down and a little to the side, and still he made no move to free his hand from hers. “You can serve onigiri with the tea next time I come.”
The Princess continued to stare up at him for half a beat, then broke into a huge smile, and with a jubilant laugh, she all but tackled him, throwing her arms around his neck. Slight as she was, her enthusiasm coupled with his own surprise at the unexpected display of affection was enough to force Sasuke back a step, one hand grabbing for the hedge just in case, the other coming up to rest in the middle of her back on reflex, to steady them both.
Which was precisely the moment when Fai peeked around the end of the hedge.
“My, aren’t we getting cozy? Looks like your throwing-stars weren’t all you were looking for, eh, Sasu-chuu?”
Princess and shinobi abruptly realised just how close together they were standing, their arms still around each other; both hurriedly disentangled themselves and backed away…and if the Princess’s cheeks were a bit flushed, Sasuke’s were practically burning.
“Ah, no!” the green-eyed girl protested, seeing the Uchiha’s discomfort. “It wasn’t…we just…Sasuke-san said he’d come visit us again, and I…was just really happy…so…”
“Well, if it’ll make Sakura-chan happy, then he should definitely come back again! The sooner the better,” Fai added more softly, and with a smile that looked almost sincere. “But for now, Haru-chan is waiting, and she has loooots of packages to carry! So come on, come on, off we go, Sasu-mii’s got a job to do~!”
Somehow they all managed to get to the front gate and exchange farewells gracefully, and Sasuke might still have managed to escape with what remained of his dignity largely intact if Fai hadn’t felt the need to point out the obvious:
“Whee! Sasu-pippi is still blushing!”
The resounding CRASH that signaled that Sasuke had lost his temper yet again was loud enough to spook the birds out of the trees for nearly a half-mile radius…and yet it still wasn’t quite loud enough to completely cover up the sound of a certain blonde magician’s thoroughly delighted and intentionally vexing laughter.
Summary: Uchiha Sasuke reluctantly accepts Princess Sakura’s invitation, and he and Haruno Sakura pay a visit to the Cat’s Eye Café--proprietor: one Fai D. Flowright. Of course, had Sasuke known anything about the blonde magician, particularly the fact that he was never one to resist a chance to get in some (mostly) good-natured teasing, the last Uchiha would never have set foot in the place.
WARNINGS: CRACK. CROSSOVER. FLUFF. RP TIE-INS. MY WEIRD SENSE OF HUMOUR. RUN FOR YOUR LIFE.
A/N: …THIS MONSTROSITY EXISTS BECAUSE its_game_time SORT OF TWISTED MY ARM INTO DOING IT and I was like AH HELL WHY NOT, and then…I shoved it away into my Documents file and tried to forget about it…but that didn’t work, so I gave up and gave in and just started writing…and then IT JUST KEPT GOING, a-and oh heavens, IDEK…I…I have no viable excuses, really…other than PHASE AND RP MADE ME DO IT, and this thread is both relevant and largely to blame. And so is this one and this one, both of which led up to that other (ASS-KICKING!) one. …So. So YEAH. /POINTS FINGERS AT!! 8|
……Also, to anyone who may care, YES OKAY FINE I ADMIT IT I am 130% a Fai/Sakura shipper. DEAL WITH IT & DON’T BITCH, OR DON’T READ & DON’T BITCH, YOUR CHOICE.
Additional Confessions: ...I was horribly tempted to add in Mokona, but he wasn’t a part of Phase’s prompt…and let’s face it, if I’d put him in, this fic would’ve ended in less than two pages in Word with both Sakuras running off with Mokona and leaving the boys high and dry. Because Mokona is a PIMP. CANON TRUFAX. Though TBH, Fai/Mokona (…or would it be Mokona/Fai?) is almost sort of canon, they get along so well. |D
And I may or may not have had WAY too much fun writing Fai in this piece. |D
*
[FaiSaku, SasuSaku. 'Sweet Nothings.']
The instant he stepped inside the café and the rich scent of freshly-baked sweets hit him like the 5:00 cross-town express, Uchiha Sasuke nearly turned on his heel and went right back out the door. It was only nearly because one Haruno Sakura had his arm linked firmly with her own, and he knew better than to make any sudden moves. Just because she could heal his arm as easily as she’d break it didn’t mean that either would be at all pleasant (and yes, he knew that from experience). Still, even if escape was out of the question, he couldn’t help stiffening a little at the overwhelmingly sugary smell hanging in the air.
The pink-haired medic-nin at his side didn’t seem to register either that stiffness or his discomfort; instead, she drew in a deep breath and released it as a sigh. “Mmm…it smells so good!”
Sasuke declined to comment, trying to be subtle about breathing through his mouth as he looked around the place. The Cat’s Eye Café was neat and tidy, airy but sensible-looking, somewhat more like a diner than a fancy restaurant. It had a fairly relaxed, homey atmosphere, and there were plenty of tables but still a sense of openness for all that, and there was a bar-like row of stools along the counter as well. From the outside, it almost looked more like a house than a shop, a melding of traditional Japanese architecture with a more Western, Edwardian style.
“Sasuke-san!”
Approaching them from across the shop, circular silver serving-tray held clutched to her chest, was a delicately beautiful girl. She had short, light brown hair, big green eyes, and an even bigger smile, and looked much the same as when Sasuke had seen her last, though maybe somewhat happier; he was perhaps a bit more pleased than he would admit, even to himself, that he couldn’t detect even the slightest hint of a limp in her stride. He thought her outfit was a bit strange-looking--a long, rather full dress with a frilly apron and lacy headband--but then again, he thought most of her garments were unusual, and he really had to stop thinking about her clothing or he’d remember the time he’d learned exactly how strange it was.
He gave the beaming girl a slight nod of greeting as she pattered to a stop in front of him, and somehow she managed to smile even wider before bowing politely. “I’m so happy that you came,” the Princess said once she’d straightened, reaching out to lightly, briefly touch his forearm, her eyes and voice both warm and soft. “And you must be Haruno-san,” she said, turning her attention to the kunoichi and giving another deep bow. “I’m Sakura, and this,” she gestured to her left, where a lanky blonde man was now leaning on the counter, “is Fai-san.”
Haruno Sakura had been frowning at the Princess ever so slightly ever since she’d touched Sasuke’s arm, though it faded (at least temporarily) as they all exchanged the customary greetings.
“Welcome to our café,” Fai said cheerfully, turning his laid-back but charming smile on the pink-haired kunoichi. “It’s always nice to have pretty girls stop by.”
The medic-nin blinked rapidly a few times, unused to flattery that concerned her appearance, then a faint blush stole over her cheeks, an almost shy smile coming to her face.
“Whatever you order today is on the house…provided you promise to come back again soon,” the blonde magician said with a friendly wink. His eyes drifted sideways to the now very disgruntled-looking Sasuke, and his smile broadened. “…But I’m afraid that offer doesn’t extend to Sasu-myuu.”
The Uchiha looked at Fai askance, his expression openly disbelieving, a perfectly clear nonverbal what the hell did you just call me? The same look was mirrored by the medic-nin at his side, albeit a more curious and less incredulous version of it; Fai just smiled innocently at the both of them before turning his attention to the Princess.
“It’s about time to close up for the lunch hour. I’ll finish with the last few customers and clean up a bit if you’ll flip the sign and make our guests some drinks, Sakura-chan.” His eyes drifted back to Sasuke, and though his smile didn’t fade in the least, there was the slightest contemplative tilt to his head. “Why don’t we sit outside?”
“Ah, yes!” Princess Sakura gushed enthusiastically. “It’s a beautiful day-not too hot, but nice and warm and sunny! And the courtyard and garden out back is lovely…” She paused, looking at the two shinobi. “…That is, if the two of you don’t mind…?”
“No, it is a nice day,” the pink-haired kunoichi agreed, albeit just a bit stiffly. Meanwhile, Fai’s gaze hadn’t really left Sasuke, that mild, observant expression still in place; the Uchiha was making a point of ignoring him.
“Let’s go,” he said, stepping past the blonde without the barest sideways glance.
Ten minutes later found them all seated outside around a nice little cast-iron bistro table, all sipping on lemonade (except Sasuke, who’d selected green tea instead) and eating from a few plates of little sandwiches and pastries that Fai had quickly put together for them.
The Princess had peppered the pink-haired kunoichi with questions about her world, eagerly offering information regarding her own when requested, and the medic-nin seemed to be relaxing around her already. Sasuke drank his tea as quickly as could still be deemed polite, then sat back in his chair, arms crossed, remaining largely uninvolved in the conversation, despite the Princess’s best efforts to pull him into it. She turned smiles his way fairly often and addressed a few questions to him specifically, but when he answered them all in grudging, nearly monosyllabic responses, she backed off. She didn’t want to bother him, after all…
Though he’d been every bit as talkative as the girls at first, Fai had lapsed into a meditative silence for a minute or two, but a sudden, semi-cunning look flickered across his face as he lowered his lemonade glass.
“Sakura-chan.”
Both girls looked at Fai, whose smile widened a bit. “Hmm, I thought that might be the case…”
“Ah, it will be a little confusing since we both have the same name, won’t it?” Princess Sakura said with a pensive little frown.
“How about this,” Fai said holding up a finger, then leveling it at the pink-haired kunoichi--“Haru-san-or Haru-chan, for you,” he said to Sasuke with a wink that made the other man bristle, then pointed at Princess Sakura--“And Hime-san.”
“Oh, but…th-that’s so formal-sounding!” the Princess protested, flushing faintly in embarrassment. “You’re my friends, after all!”
Fai leaned forward a bit, resting his elbow on the table and cupping his chin in his hand. “Well then, perhaps just ‘Princess’?”
“You mean you’re really a princess?” the newly dubbed ‘Haru-san’ asked, blinking in slight surprise and shooting a why didn’t you tell me this look Sasuke’s way, which Sasuke quite convincingly pretended not to see.
The Princess nodded, but was quick to add, “But I’m not the princess of this world. The country I’m from is far away… The kingdom of Clow is a desert country, and it’s small with just a few lovingly-tended patches of fertile land…but it’s a wonderful place.”
That led right into talk of Suna, the girls comparing the customs, clothing, and even the governments of the desert nations. The Princess had just brought up the desert ruins when Fai interrupted with a casual-sounding, “You know, I think you’re right, Princess. Sasu-tan does remind me of Kuro-pii…”
Sasuke’s eyes narrowed as he gave Fai a suspicious look, though the Princess got a part of it in a brief glance before he returned his attention to the smiling magician. Even though that glance had been more uncertain and inquisitive than the hard, distrustful look he was keeping trained on Fai, it was still enough to make the girl rush to explain.
“…Ah! Kurogane-san is one of our travelling companions! He’s a swordsman, tall, and with black hair and red eyes, and he’s very strong-”
“-And he really doesn’t have much of a sense of humour,” Fai interjected smoothly. “It’s so easy to tease him…but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Actually, it just makes it even more fun!” His cornflower-blue eyes crinkled a little at the corners as he smiled at Sasuke, utterly undaunted by the undisguised glare he was now receiving. “What do you think, Sasu-rin? Does that sound like you?”
Sasuke had tensed just slightly out of reflex, though Haruno Sakura could tell that he wasn’t really intending to do anything; it would take a lot more needling than that to get a real reaction out of the Uchiha. Still, just in case, she placed a hand on his forearm, below the level of the table, the touch and her expression both calming and warning.
Meanwhile, Princess Sakura was looking anxiously from Fai to Sasuke and back. “Um…Fai-san, maybe we should bring out dessert…?” she hedged, then gained back some of her regular enthusiasm as she stood and added, “You were going to show me how to make the perfect parfait, so that we could serve them to Sakura-san and Sasuke-san!”
“Yes, that’s right,” Fai said, turning to her with a smile as he stood as well. “Though the desserts don’t have to be parfaits, if our guests would rather something else. Tiramisu, crème brûlée, cheesecake, crêpe suzette-”
“Parfaits would be just fine.” Haruno Sakura said with a firm smile. She’d looked the café’s menu over earlier, and had gaped a bit over seeing so many fancy, foreign-sounding desserts. For once she was actually grateful that Ino had insisted on dragging her to nearly every fancy new restaurant that had opened in Konoha over the past three years. The blonde kunoichi hadn’t wanted to go by herself, and had wanted to eat all those fattening desserts alone even less, but simply wasting the food wasn’t something she’d wanted to do either, so Sakura had gotten stuck finishing up more than her share of said desserts. But after Sai had made three extremely impolite, untrue (and for him, unfortunate) remarks about Sakura’s waistline in one week alone, Sakura had put her foot down, and made Ino start taking Chouji instead.
“Chocolate and cherries for me, please,” she added before Fai could ask. His eyebrows quirked upwards, an appreciative sort of acknowledgement…then he looked over at Sasuke again.
“And for Sasu-pyon? What’ll it be?”
“Nothing,” the Uchiha replied gruffly.
“Yeah, Sasuke-kun doesn’t really like sweets,” the pink-haired kunoichi chipped in supportively, and a little apologetically as well.
The Princess couldn’t hide a flicker of surprise at that, looking at Sasuke searchingly before quickly turning her eyes downward, remembering the cookies she’d made him as a thank-you gift. Had she forced them on him? And did it even count as a real thank-you gift if the other person didn’t like it?
Before she could think on it any more than that, Fai took her by the shoulders. “Come on, Sakura-chan, let’s get to work!” he said cheerfully, steering her gently but firmly back into the café. The Princess’ worried expression gradually shifted back into her usual smile as Fai held the door for her and ushered her back inside.
The Uchiha watched them go with dark, still-narrowed eyes. So this was the ‘Fai-san’ who had helped her with that dress… Somehow Sasuke wasn’t at all surprised by that, though for some reason, he found that a part of him really didn’t like that fact, either. Of course, he had no place in this--his approval or disapproval meant nothing, less than nothing overall. But he couldn’t help distrusting anyone with a smile that glib (he was hiding something, with a smile like that, he had to be), and Sasuke couldn’t deny that the thought of that magician with his hands on the Princess bothered him. It wasn’t exactly jealousy, because he already had someone important, and cheating wasn’t something that Sasuke would ever even consider. But even if it wasn’t quite romantic, he was still interested in the girl’s wellbeing. He did care. Maybe--probably--all right, definitely--more than he should.
“He really cares about her a lot, doesn’t he.”
Sasuke started a bit at Sakura’s casual-sounding comment, looking over at her quickly, wondering how--if--she knew what he’d been thinking. But the medic-nin was still looking after the Princess and the Magician, a knowing little smile on her face.
“…What do you mean,” Sasuke asked grudgingly after taking a moment to try (and fail) to figure it out for himself.
“Well, he just seems really protective of her, that’s all,” Sakura said with a shrug as she finished off her lemonade. “He really does his best to keep her happy and to stop her from worrying, and he’s always smiling at her, especially when she looks like she’s about to lose her own smile…” The kunoichi suddenly shook her head hard, giving a sheepish but still somewhat annoyed little huff. “Argh! What the heck am I even saying? I just mean…I don’t know what they’ve been through, but I think it’s pretty obvious that she’s important to him, and that he’s doing whatever he can to support her, that’s all.”
Of course, there was more than one way to support someone, she added to herself, sneaking a sideways look at Sasuke (who was looking rather skeptical and unconvinced). Smiles and sweets and light-hearted conversation worked for some…but just being there, a strong, silent presence, was a sort of support, too. And he had cared enough to invite her along on this little trip…and even though he clearly wanted to leave, and had wanted to leave half an hour ago, this time, he was staying. For her sake.
Her hand found his under the table, and he looked over at her as she threaded their fingers together, giving him only a smirk by way of explanation. He didn’t quite roll his eyes, and though he didn’t really return the smirk either, his hand tightened around hers just noticeably.
They stayed that way, enjoying the shared silence and the sight and scent of the garden stretching out before them, until the café doors swung open again, signaling the return of the other half of their party.
“And here we are!” Fai said as he swept across the cobblestone patio, balancing a heavily-laden serving tray like an old pro, the Princess following at his heels. “Chocolate and cherries for Haru-san~” He slid an almost mountainous sundae across the table with a grin. “Mango and blackberries for Hime-chan~” The Princess’s was considerably smaller, the kunoichi noted, and Fai’s was somewhere roughly in the middle. “And strawberries and extra whipped cream for me!”
“…And more tea for Sasuke-san,” the Princess added, holding up a fresh pot of green tea and looking to Sasuke for permission, waiting for his nod before filling his cup again.
“Uh…it looks…great!” the medic-nin said, though clearly she found the size of the thing somewhat daunting.
“Don’t worry if you can’t finish it all,” Fai said with a cheerfully dismissive wave of his hand, making the pink-haired girl shoot him an almost guilty glance. “Though of course, like I said, if it turns out you want seconds instead, it’s still on the house.”
The next few minutes were filled with the clink of spoons against glass, and giggles and hums of delight from the girls.
“Here, try some of mine!”
“Mm! Try some of mine, too!”
“These are really good, Sakura-chan!”
“Oh, don’t thank me, Fai-san did most of it, really.”
“See how sweets can make people smile?” The blonde man gave a happy little sigh, clearly addressing Sasuke. Sasuke, meanwhile, had already finished his second pot of tea, and was trying (and again failing) to not look like he wanted to be a hundred miles away at that very moment; the girls were so focused on the parfaits and each other, they practically were a hundred miles away, leaving Sasuke entirely at the mercy of the mischievous-looking magician. “Come on, Sasu-bun!” Fai said, leaning across the table to offer Sasuke a generous helping of his parfait. “One little taste won’t kill you, will it? Sakura-hime-chan worked really hard to get these just right, you know…you wouldn’t want her hard work to be wasted, right?”
Sasuke turned his head away in refusal, trying not to sneer too openly at the sugary spoonful. Sakura hadn’t been lying, he really didn’t care for sweets, but in this case, the idea of sharing silverware with the affectedly upbeat magician was even more abhorrent.
“Fai-san!” Their conversation (such it was) had apparently caught the Princess’s attention, and the Uchiha relaxed a little as the lanky blonde’s focus shifted off him and onto the Princess. “Please don’t force him…it’s all right. If he doesn’t like sweets, I don’t want him to make himself eat something like that.” She gave them both a small, hesitant smile. “He’ll just have to tell me what he does like, so I can make that for him instead next time.”
But Fai wasn’t one to give up that easily. “Now now, Princess~ You know it doesn’t hurt to try something new once in a while! It might be good for him in the long run, after all…and a flat refusal like that when you haven’t even tried something is really pretty rude.” Fai’s bright, high-spirited tone hadn’t changed even slightly, despite the fact that the words themselves had slipped from casual to almost accusing. “Unless…maybe he’s afraid to try new things? Is that it? How could a big, strong ninja be scared of something like a cute little parfait, Sasu-wanwan~?”
Thus far, Sasuke had been bearing up admirably under what was beginning to fall just short of verbal harassment, but the sheer stupidity of the accusation coupled with that last nickname seemed to be just a bit too much. Various cups and dishes chittered a bit as he brought a clenched fist down on the table, his lip curled in what was quite literally a growl. “Shut-”
And that was as far as he got before the grinning blonde gleefully crammed a heaping spoonful of strawberry parfait into his open mouth.
Sasuke’s eyes bulged, and he swallowed out of sheer surprise, nearly choking on half a strawberry as his anger dissolved into a desperate coughing fit. Haruno Sakura was instantly on her feet, pounding his back hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “Are you choking?” she asked with a clinical calmness, and when she could hear that his windpipe wasn’t obstructed, she continued to pat his back, repeating an utterly unruffled-sounding “Just breathe, Sasuke-kun” every so often. The Princess, meanwhile, had given him her own hardly-touched glass of water before dashing off into the café to get him more tea; the water-glass was empty when she returned a few minutes later, though still he reached for the hot beverage before she’d even offered it.
He downed the first cup of tea in one go, like a shot of hard liquor, and the second followed nearly as fast; the third he drank more slowly, and by then he’d mostly recovered, but for a faint rasping catch in his breathing. When he raised his head, his face was set in a dark glower that would make just about anyone with a decent sense of self-preservation take a hasty step backward--an expression that (almost impossibly) got darker when he found Fai beaming at him, all sunshine and flowers and innocent golden sparkles.
“There now, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he said lightly.
Had he been the type to goggle, Sasuke would have. As it was, his killing intent just ratcheted up another level (bringing it from ‘mildly murderous’ to ‘outright homicidal’).
The pink-haired medic-nin still standing behind him gave a visible shiver, and even the Princess looked at him a little apprehensively; Fai alone seemed unperturbed, or perhaps just oblivious, though anyone who really knew Fai also knew how unlikely that was, especially considering how blatant Sasuke’s push one more button, however small, and DIE vibe was. But Fai did so love to push buttons…
His wide, easy smile suddenly went even wider. “Oh my, Sasu-puu, you’ve got some whipped cream on your face-” With a smirk and a deft flourish of a napkin, Fai moved as if to dab it off the Uchiha’s cheek. “-Juuuust there-”
Well before the napkin made contact with any part of his face, Sasuke finally snapped. With a snarl, he practically exploded out of his seat, lunging across the table, upsetting all the drinks and what remained of the parfaits and nearly sending the table itself crashing to the ground, too angry to use any sort of shinobi skill in that instant. (Princess Sakura made a valiant attempt to keep the table upright, but it was Haruno Sakura’s excellent reflexes and insane strength that kept both table and Princess from a rather disastrous fate.)
Well used to that sort of violent reaction by now, Fai had been waiting for it, leaping away from the table and off the patio itself, evading the attack with ease; to him, the only surprise was that the boy had kept his temper as long as he had.
But maybe, he mused to himself as he dodged behind a rose trellis and deflected a kunai with one of their café’s silver serving trays, that was only because Kurogane seemed to snap at every little thing right away.
“Goodness, Sasu-chii certainly does have some scary faces! Just like Kuro-pin!” the blonde chuckled, fluidly dodging another pair of kunai and a fistful of shuriken before sending the serving tray sailing at the Uchiha so fast it blurred, fairly humming as it flew. It struck squarely in the center of Sasuke’s forehead, connecting with a solid, metallic spang, the younger man’s eyes going wide with shock as his body started to slump to the side--then disappeared entirely in a puff of smoke.
“…A copy of some sort? Not bad,” Fai said with a low whistle, a whispery but strangely melodious phwee sound. A moment later, he was darting down the path back towards the café, coming around from the opposite side of the decently-sized garden; he’d just stepped to the edge of the little decorative pond located at the garden’s edge when he found the tip of a sword hovering at his throat.
“Ah! Hello, Sasu-min! Looks like you found me.” Despite the slight waver in the blade held mere centimeters from his neck, Fai’s eyes and voice were almost unspeakably calm, and his smile didn’t falter in the least. “So…now that you have me, what do you intend to do with me? Phwuu-”
Whatever he saw in those pale blue eyes was enough to drain most of the heat from Sasuke’s anger, though the lingering irritation still remained, flickering and nipping at the edges of his restraint. The Uchiha glared up at the magician along his sword a moment longer, then scoffed quietly, lowering his blade and turning way. Much as part of him honestly did want to stab that bastard in the face for acting like such a moron half the time, he wasn’t that sort of-
“Sakura-hime-chan seems pre~etty attached to you, don’t you think? I wonder why that is…” Sasuke stiffened just slightly but didn’t turn back, and so missed Fai’s knowing smile. “I think Sakura-Haru-chan noticed it, too…she might even have been a little jealous.”
“Shut up,” Sasuke hissed, his grip tightening on the hilt of his sword, though he still refused to look back. “You don’t know anything about us, so just shut up!”
“Uh-oh, looks like that struck a nerve-oh dear, you’re not the two-timing type, are you, Sasu-ran?”
Once again, Sasuke’s last thread of patience snapped without warning, and he whirled on the blonde magician with a vengeance, his blade already cutting a glinting arc through the air. Again, Fai had anticipated this, and caught the attack with (of all things) the metal pole from a nearby bird-feeder, though it took a sizeable chunk out of the cheap metal.
Although they were on the other side of the garden, the unmistakable sound of a fight had drawn the girls’ attention, bringing them both to their feet to hover at the edge of the courtyard proper.
“Shouldn’t we stop…” The pink-haired girl trailed off as she watched the smirking blonde almost playfully evade a flurry of Sasuke’s attacks. He’s obviously no amateur…with the way he moves, he’s seen his share of battles. But to keep up with Sasuke-kun like that-!
So absorbed was she in watching the fight (of sorts), the kunoichi started a bit when the Princess laid a gentle hand on her arm.
“Don’t worry…they’ll be fine,” the smaller girl said warmly. “Fai-san and Sasuke-san are both very strong…and I know neither of them really wants to hurt the other.”
“…Yeah,” the medic-nin said after a slight pause. It was true, Sasuke really could look out for himself, and yet, with the way Fai had sidestepped his attacks so effortlessly… “And if they do get hurt, I’ll be right here to heal them.” Right after I break their heads for being such dumbasses! she grumbled to herself as the Princess fairly beamed and thanked her for her help. Starting fights over nothing, and causing the people who care about them most all kinds of trouble… Really, it was all she could do not to go lay them both out on their backs right now.
She snorted. Honestly, men.
Meanwhile, Fai was still just barely keeping ahead of Sasuke, though he dodged each strike smoothly and easily, as if it were some kind of dance. “Hmm, you’re not exactly like Kuro-sama after all… You talk even less, for one thing,” he hummed, giving another little whistle as he parried yet another blow. “I think you might be even grumpier than he is, too! But even so, you always seem to take special care to be kind to Sakura-hime-chan…” He swung the (now heavily-dented) pole low to the ground in a rare offensive move, though it seemed more like a formality than an actual attempt to land a blow. “Why is that, I wonder~?”
“You’re one to talk, with the way you look at her!” Sasuke all but snarled, taking another slash at the still-smiling magician. “Why don’t you just tell her!”
A flicker of short-lived, entirely honest surprise crossed Fai’s face, a fleeting expression of being caught red-handed, though the ever-present smile soon swallowed it up again. “Oh my, Sasu-rinta really is the jealous type after all!” His eyes narrowed slyly, his smile growing the faintest of edges as he caught Sasuke’s blade with his makeshift staff, using his height to his advantage and holding them both in a deadlock as he leaned in little closer to speak in a stage-whisper. “…But which Sakura are you getting jealous over, really?” Then he laughed as Sasuke barred his teeth and jerked his sword free to take another swing at him, parrying the blow and then sliding backwards and away, using the pole to vault lightly up onto the second-story roof of the café. “You can’t have both, that would just be greedy!” he shouted down, waving cheerfully at the almost visibly-steaming Sasuke.
Moments later, Sasuke had joined him on the roof, staring across at that nauseatingly persistent smile. He let a frosty smirk turn the corners of his own mouth upward as he surveyed their surroundings--up there on the roof, the risk of setting something on fire was considerably less, what with all the open space and the roof’s baked-clay tiles. A fire katon should be just fine, he thought as his hands flew through the familiar seals.
“Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!”
At the very moment before he released the fireball, a series of clear notes rang out-the magician was whistling, Sasuke realised, but this time the noise was sharp and piercing, nothing at all like the lisping, clumsier-sounding ones from before.
Pwuuuu- Pweeee- Pwuuuuuuu-
It was hard to tell if the water had come from the decorative pond below, or the surrounding air, or even if it was really even water at all. It certainly moved like water, or at least nearly as fluidly, but whatever it was, it shimmered and spun, an almost instantaneous whirlwind surrounding the magician, a twirling flurry of scintillating particles-
And then, the fireball hit.
Flames snapped and leaped, and smoke momentarily obscured everything; oddly enough, Sasuke suddenly felt a bit strange and off-balance, his vision seeming to dim. Not again, he thought with a growl, crouching on the roof to rub at his eyes. As expected, it didn’t really help.
His vision still didn’t improve when the smoke finally cleared…but where there had been nothing brief seconds before, there was now what looked like a spherical cage of sorts encompassing nearly the entire roof--Sasuke included. Despite the graceful, delicate-looking whorls and curls and the numerous gaps in the design, the fireball must have broken against it like a wave crashing into a sea-cliff; there wasn’t even so much as a single singe-mark on the faintly sparkling enclosure.
And there, sitting on the ridgepole of the roof in the middle of the cage, his elbows resting casually on his knees, was Fai, looking utterly at ease and laid-back as ever.
“Wheet-whoo! You nearly got me that time, Sasu-chin! You’re really something else.”
Something else was almost precisely the term that came to mind when Sasuke looked around him. The vaguely icy-looking cage glittered and gleamed with a cold, otherworldly sort of light; he narrowly resisted the urge to shiver--not at the cold, but at the presence of such a powerful unknown. Because, try though he might, it was as if his chakra had simply been closed up, sealed off, shut away completely: still faint, still there, but just out of reach. He didn’t dare stand up straight, not wanting to be obvious about wobbling, since he’d been using chakra to augment his balance, so he stayed down in a semi-tense crouch, eyes narrowing to dark chips of jet; even the Sharingan wouldn’t work, which made it feel almost personal. But as he steadily met Fai’s somehow-cloudy-looking eyes and not-quite-sincere smile, the smallest measure of something like respect settled itself deep in his chest.
So this was what Princess Sakura had meant when she said magic…
“…I still don’t really like using any sort of magic,” Fai admitted quietly after a moment, inclining his head minutely, not really looking at Sasuke; despite his dulled senses, the shinobi could see there was an almost poignant sort of sadness in the older man’s smile. “Even this kind, which uses a completely different system than the kind of magic I was taught…but then again, maybe all magic really is the same after all. Who can say?” He whistled a few more wispy notes before turning his typical lighthearted smile on the largely incapacitated shinobi. “But then again, I couldn’t very well run the risk of having you burn down our café, now, could I…Sasuke-san?”
“Fai-san!” The blonde magician looked down to see the Princess calling up to him, her hands cupped around her mouth. “It’s time for Sakura-san and Sasuke-san to go!”
“Ah…looks like playtime’s over, hmm?” He glanced over at the rather miserable-looking shinobi, clearly amused by the younger man’s plight. “Too bad, eh, Sasu-chama?”
Sasuke just snorted, more than ready to be out of that all-too-confining cage; but Fai wasn’t done with him quite yet, and he was still a captive for a short while longer.
“I guess you’re different from Kuro-ton in more ways than I thought…” Fai mused as the cage slowly started to fade. “He gets angry a lot faster, but he doesn’t really mean it most of the time…whereas you…” The magician looked up at the clear sky overhead, watching the top of the enclosure vanish in a silent whirl of shimmering sparkles. “You don’t get angry nearly as fast, but once you’re seriously mad, you’re the type who won’t ever let it go, no matter what.” He turned a droll half-smirk over at the damningly silent shinobi. “Of course, I don’t really know any of that for sure! It’s just a guess…but then again, you aren’t denying it.”
By that time, the cage had all but vanished; when Sasuke raised his eyes to meet the magician’s clear blue ones again, his own had spun to blood red.
“…Just shut up. You talk too much.”
Fai chuckled as they both slid to the edge of the roof and dropped, catlike, to the ground. “Is that so? I’ll keep that in mind.”
After the Princess was satisfied that neither had been injured, Fai immediately draped an arm around the pink-haired medic-nin’s shoulders. “I’ll just borrow Haru-chan for a minute, if you don’t mind~ I thought you might want to take back some gifts for people on your world, and Sasu-ryun will be pretty useless since he doesn’t like sweets! No help at all! So do us a favour and stay out of the kitchen, okay~? Maybe go pick up those weapons you left in the garden or something.”
“Ah! I’ll help you look for them, Sasuke-san!” the Princess volunteered, hoping to draw attention from Fai’s unrelenting teasing, and she’d dashed off into the greenery before Sasuke could turn her down.
“Have fun, you two!” Fai called over his shoulder without looking back, ushering the slightly flushed kunoichi at his side indoors, only removing his arm to open the door for her and gracefully bow her through.
Sasuke closed his eyes to that sight, not quite on the level of needing to count to ten, though it was a near thing. (There was absolutely NO doubt in his mind that this was a set up, though why that supremely irritating magician would want him to be alone with the Princess, all things considered, had him thoroughly baffled.) Once his temper was firmly in check once more, he headed out into the garden after the Princess.
“Sasuke-san, I found one!”
Apprehension instantly lanced through a suddenly-tight portion of his chest (they were weapons after all, rather dangerous ones, and he didn’t want her to cut herself on accident), and with a rustle of leaves, he teleported to the area her voice had come from, arriving just in time to see her cautiously tug a throwing-star out of the ground.
“Oh, Sasuke-san!” she said as she straightened, brightening on seeing him and carefully holding the shuriken out toward him. “Look, I found two more already! Do you know how many you’re missing?”
“Three kunai and five shuriken total,” he admitted reluctantly. He would just as soon leave them there--they weren’t expensive by any stretch of the imagination--but this was her garden, and if there was even the slightest chance she might (perhaps literally) stumble onto one of them later on by mistake…well, he already felt guilty enough when it came to Princess Sakura. He didn’t need to make things any worse.
“…The other shuriken should be in this same area.” The kunai would be closer to the rose trellis. “Don’t cut yourself. If it’s stuck, leave it for me.” The Princess nodded in understanding, accepting the orders without question or comment, and soon they’d each found one of the last two throwing-stars. It only took Sasuke a few seconds to locate the kunai, thanks to both their size and placement, and he’d just finished tucking them all away when Fai’s voice floated out to them from the patio:
“Hello~? Anyone still out there~? You didn’t run off together, now, did you?”
Three of the newly-recovered shuriken whizzed through the air, skipping off the stones in the space where Fai had been standing mere seconds before. Undaunted, the magician scooped them up, holding two in between the fingers of one hand, and absently rolling the other across his knuckles as he raised his voice again.
“Haru-chan is probably at the front gate by now, you know. You should hurry, Sasu-tama, it isn’t nice to keep a beautiful young woman waiting like that! Shame on you!”
“Fai-san must really like you,” the Princess stated as they obediently made their way along the garden path, both trying to ignore the powerful sense of déjà vu supplied in part by their current surroundings.
Sasuke shot her a look fraught with incredulity, but remained silent. If anything, he’d felt unfairly put-upon, pestered, and even outright harassed, none of which had made him feel particularly liked. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The Princess must have read the skepticism on his face, because she covered a little laugh with her hand and explained, “Kurogane-san is the only other person Fai-san has ever used all those nicknames on…so he must really think you’re someone special. That’s just how Fai-san is…when he really likes someone, he just can’t bring himself to leave them alone.”
…When she put it that way, Naruto was a little like that, Sasuke supposed, albeit much less overbearing and not half as repulsively smiley. So really, it did make a twisted sort of sense…but that still didn’t make the blue-eyed magician any less infuriating.
By that time, they’d reached the edge of the garden, one final row of tall hedges all that separated them from the grassy expanse bordering the café’s patio…and the Princess came to a halt. Sensing that she’d stopped, Sasuke paused as well and looked back, his expression not quite curious or concerned, but distinctly less-blank than usual.
“…Sasuke-san…” The Princess took the two steps separating them tentatively, her cheeks a little pink, but her expression determined as she reached out to grasp his hand firmly. “…Thank you,” she said at last, perhaps a little shyly. “Thank you for coming today. I was glad to see you again…it made me really happy.” Her eyes were bright as they met his, and she gave his hand a little squeeze. “So…thank you.”
Even after she’d thanked him, Sakura didn’t let go--she didn’t seem to want to--and Sasuke found he didn’t quite have it in him to simply pull away from her.
“…Um…you can come back any time you want!” she added suddenly, growing flustered as she scrambled to find a reason for the fact that she was hanging onto his hand. “I’m sure Fai-san was just kidding about only Sakura-san’s food being free, but I get paid some too, and I wouldn’t mind covering your bill if he tries to take that joke too far-”
“Sakura.”
All it took was that single word and a not-quite smile from the Uchiha prodigy to make the Princess fall silent, waiting, half-expectant, and more than half-hopeful.
“…Onigiri.”
She blinked, jade-green eyes going wide. “...Eh?”
Sasuke looked down and a little to the side, and still he made no move to free his hand from hers. “You can serve onigiri with the tea next time I come.”
The Princess continued to stare up at him for half a beat, then broke into a huge smile, and with a jubilant laugh, she all but tackled him, throwing her arms around his neck. Slight as she was, her enthusiasm coupled with his own surprise at the unexpected display of affection was enough to force Sasuke back a step, one hand grabbing for the hedge just in case, the other coming up to rest in the middle of her back on reflex, to steady them both.
Which was precisely the moment when Fai peeked around the end of the hedge.
“My, aren’t we getting cozy? Looks like your throwing-stars weren’t all you were looking for, eh, Sasu-chuu?”
Princess and shinobi abruptly realised just how close together they were standing, their arms still around each other; both hurriedly disentangled themselves and backed away…and if the Princess’s cheeks were a bit flushed, Sasuke’s were practically burning.
“Ah, no!” the green-eyed girl protested, seeing the Uchiha’s discomfort. “It wasn’t…we just…Sasuke-san said he’d come visit us again, and I…was just really happy…so…”
“Well, if it’ll make Sakura-chan happy, then he should definitely come back again! The sooner the better,” Fai added more softly, and with a smile that looked almost sincere. “But for now, Haru-chan is waiting, and she has loooots of packages to carry! So come on, come on, off we go, Sasu-mii’s got a job to do~!”
Somehow they all managed to get to the front gate and exchange farewells gracefully, and Sasuke might still have managed to escape with what remained of his dignity largely intact if Fai hadn’t felt the need to point out the obvious:
“Whee! Sasu-pippi is still blushing!”
The resounding CRASH that signaled that Sasuke had lost his temper yet again was loud enough to spook the birds out of the trees for nearly a half-mile radius…and yet it still wasn’t quite loud enough to completely cover up the sound of a certain blonde magician’s thoroughly delighted and intentionally vexing laughter.