a heart will always go one step too far.
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Uchiha Itachi & Haruno Sakura
Prompt: 010. home & 07. shrimp & 349. beautiful friendship
Word Count: 1644
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Warning: Not much ItaSaku here - they're still in their younger years. The beginnings of Team Seven friendship is in abundance here though.
Notes: Non-Massacre AU. Second of a mini-series. Sequels/Prequels can be found here at CHIAROSCURO. Written for lover100 & 50_shinobi & 500themes. Prompt tables are here & here.
-
Haruno Sakura, he learned afterwards.
He had thought that it suited her, a cherry blossom billowing in the springtime. It was fitting enough, for a little girl of flowing coral locks and even brighter emeralds for eyes. And then he hadn’t thought about her at all, swept away by the duties of his life. But after that, as if by some forgiving miracle of kami, he was a little more at ease. It never got easier, though - in the countless missions after that one, the child with gleaming cerulean orbs had her fair share of successors, each with a closed future full of would have, could have, should have been opportunities. But after that day, he was no longer drowning in the overwhelming guilt of it all - he had been saved, undeserving as he believed he was.
Perhaps it had been a mother’s intuition, or simply the genius behind the Uchiha matriarch, but when Uchiha Mikoto saw her eldest boy enter the compound clutching a wondrous bundle in his fingers, she knew it was an opportunity that simply could not slip away. With a mother’s smile she had welcomed the scarred boy home, his tray of dango balanced delicately in her hands. With a swipe even his ANBU-honed senses hadn’t picked up, she had swapped his carnations for the tray of food.
And then he didn’t see the familiar petals again. Unknowing to him, a little more of the guilt, of what felt like the weight of the world returned, and for a week it stayed that way. It wasn’t until he saw them dried, the previously vibrant petals dulled to an ageless tone, bundled with a new ribbon in his room did he really relax, and he realized with a wry smirk that Uchiha Mikoto was not someone to be taken lightly.
But life carried on, and another colourless year drifted by before the vivacious colours of pink and green once again invaded his world.
“Baka!” Itachi stirred from his kitchen chair, ears perking at the voices drifting through the open window. “Don’t touch that! Mikoto-san’s never going to invite us back at this rate!”
“Dobe,” Sasuke’s voice joined the fray, laced heavily with annoyance. “That was a wedding present to my okaa-san.”
“Ehh?” a third voice joined in, and Itachi quickly identified him as the Kyuubi container. “I didn’t mean to! Oh no. If Mikoto-san never invites us back I’ll never get to eat her delicious shrimp again!”
The soft laughter belonging to his mother was the only reply the blonde got, before Mikoto ushered them through the shoji doors.
“Aniki!” Sasuke looked up in surprise, not expecting his brother to be sitting so casually in the kitchen. A long-term ANBU mission had taken the elder Uchiha from their family home for the past five months, and Sasuke, with his incurable case of hero worship almost jumped at the sight of his brother. Almost. At the last moment, he reigned in his excitement, replacing his would-have been pounce with a tentative Uchiha-smile. “When did you get back?”
“This morning,” Itachi replied, standing up as fluid as water. From his peripheral, he picked up the delicate blush that had spread across the pinkette’s face at the deep baritone of his voice. “They are...?”
“Idiots,” Sasuke offered, earning him a hard smack on the arm and an angered protest. Mikoto shot him a glare, shooing them into the kitchen.
“His friends from the Academy,” the beautiful woman said in passing as she followed them back into the room, Itachi close on her heels. An amused smirk tugged at Itachi’s lips as he walked in after, eyeing the girl sitting demurely at the table. “Introduce yourselves, dears.”
Naruto wasted no time in beaming at the taller teen, stating with a near-yell that he was Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage. Sakura though, at the sight of the elder Uchiha seemed to have lost her fierce temper and bubbly, outgoing persona. When he turned his oynx orbs on her, the blush that had already been crawling across her face spread like wildfire, and in a vain attempt to hide her embarrassment, tilted her face downwards. In her haste, she missed the dance of amusement flash across his eyes.
“Haruno Sakura,” she supplied finally, deciding to throw caution to the wind. She blinked her twin emeralds up at him, throwing him a tentative, demure yet bright smile. When he said nothing, her left hand shot up nervously to tuck a wayward cerise strand back behind her ears. In that moment when their eyes met, though it was for the briefest of fleeting seconds, he had seen the recognition and remembrance in her bright eyes.
It would seem that he wasn’t the only one that remembered their encounter a year prior.
Sasuke, having never seen his pink haired friend act so timid before, narrowed his eyes at the duo. But he remained his silence, not wanting to annoy his aniki on the first day of his return; there’d be plenty more chances for that. Instead, he turned to his mother, a quick “what’s for dinner?” falling from his lips.
“Shrimp tempura, seeing as Naruto-kun loves them so much!” the woman replied, swivelling her head enough to beam at the boy she was quickly starting to consider her third son. This elicited a whooping cry of joy from the blonde, causing him to nearly bowl the table over in the process. This earned him a bruise to match Sasuke’s, the deadliest of Uchiha glares and an imperceptible twitch from the eldest.
“How was the mission?” Sasuke turned, returning his gaze to his impossibly handsome brother.
“Adequate,” was Itachi’s only curt reply, and the steel in his eyes spoke heavily to Sasuke of all the unspoken words. In his childish haze, Sasuke tried to pry as much information from Itachi about his missions as possible, wanting desperately for details of the life he wished to someday lead. His elder brother had chastised him so often for asking repeatedly for classified details that the former no longer wished to waste more words on the subject, exasperated as he was.
“You are all in the same class?” Itachi asked, turning his gaze once more to the timid girl sitting opposite him.
“Yeah!” Naruto answered instead, blurting out the word so fast that Sakura didn’t even have a chance to digest the meaning of Itachi’s words, busy as she was revelling in the milky silk that was his voice. “We’re just as good as your stick-in-the-as-” Sakura shot him a deathly glare, daring him to be his vulgar self in the presence of such a man, and a nervous chuckle escaped Naruto’s lips. “-butt! That’s what I meant; stick-in-the-butt brother! Believe it!”
Beside him, he heard his little, foolish little brother mutter a quiet ‘if I’m stuck with these two morons for our entire genin career...’, and almost smirked in wry amusement.
“The food is almost ready!” Mikoto’s voice sang, and the younger trio shot up from their respective chairs immediately. Over the past months that have found the three forming a rather unconventionally close friendship, the amount of days they spent eating at the Uchiha compound increased so much so that they spent nearly two nights a week eating together at the Uchiha home. They learned the hard way that while they would be more than hazardous if they tried to cook, doing their part by setting the table was compulsory. Setting the table meant delicious food to eat, and sitting around on your ass meant that you got to stare at the delicious food.
Itachi’s eyes traced the girl’s movements as she scurried from the cutlery drawer back to the table, a contented smile on her face as she laughed softly at her friends bickering in the background. “Don’t call me a baka - who’s the one that fried the tree by accident today?” Naruto burst out in a triumphant tone, smug that he had finally remembered some dirt on the young Uchiha.
“Baka. At least I can fry a tree.”
“Sakura-chan!” the former whined, nearly dropping his stack of plates in the process. “Why do we even bother hanging out with this guy?”
“Because we love Mikoto-san’s shrimp entirely too much to give Sasuke-kun up,” she replied without missing a beat, ignoring the deep scowl set on Sasuke’s face as she floated past him. When she reached Itachi again however, the slight pause in her steps and momentary look of surprise set on her face made him wonder fleetingly if she had forgotten his presence.
The ghost of that same violent expression of subconscious pondering befell her features again before it melted finally into a smile with all the warmth of spring. “Are you well, Itachi-san?”
“Quite well,” was his curt reply, his face expressionless as he surveyed her with piercing crimson orbs.
“Er, well-” she stammered, growing increasingly nervous under his unwavering scrutiny. “You should rest well! I mean, you must be tired. It was a long mission, right? Right,” she finished for herself, the blush now shading her face unforgivingly. She let her bright emeralds roam his perfect features once more before swivelling around with agility of her later years.
“Baka!” she gasped, smacking Naruto upside his head. “That’s not a bowl!”
Itachi turned his gaze out the window where the glaring moon was making its presence known and tuned out the mindless droning of childish banter around him. Long repressed thoughts of pink tinted with glowing viridian and petals of silk drifted into his mind once more as her soprano laughter pierced his thoughts.
They were only at the beginning of the bridge that would be their future, but at this moment, with her picture of innocent smiles and forgiving laughter, he let the past year leave him.
Like this, he could feel at peace - even for a little while.
Characters: Uchiha Itachi & Haruno Sakura
Prompt: 010. home & 07. shrimp & 349. beautiful friendship
Word Count: 1644
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Warning: Not much ItaSaku here - they're still in their younger years. The beginnings of Team Seven friendship is in abundance here though.
Notes: Non-Massacre AU. Second of a mini-series. Sequels/Prequels can be found here at CHIAROSCURO. Written for lover100 & 50_shinobi & 500themes. Prompt tables are here & here.
-
Haruno Sakura, he learned afterwards.
He had thought that it suited her, a cherry blossom billowing in the springtime. It was fitting enough, for a little girl of flowing coral locks and even brighter emeralds for eyes. And then he hadn’t thought about her at all, swept away by the duties of his life. But after that, as if by some forgiving miracle of kami, he was a little more at ease. It never got easier, though - in the countless missions after that one, the child with gleaming cerulean orbs had her fair share of successors, each with a closed future full of would have, could have, should have been opportunities. But after that day, he was no longer drowning in the overwhelming guilt of it all - he had been saved, undeserving as he believed he was.
Perhaps it had been a mother’s intuition, or simply the genius behind the Uchiha matriarch, but when Uchiha Mikoto saw her eldest boy enter the compound clutching a wondrous bundle in his fingers, she knew it was an opportunity that simply could not slip away. With a mother’s smile she had welcomed the scarred boy home, his tray of dango balanced delicately in her hands. With a swipe even his ANBU-honed senses hadn’t picked up, she had swapped his carnations for the tray of food.
And then he didn’t see the familiar petals again. Unknowing to him, a little more of the guilt, of what felt like the weight of the world returned, and for a week it stayed that way. It wasn’t until he saw them dried, the previously vibrant petals dulled to an ageless tone, bundled with a new ribbon in his room did he really relax, and he realized with a wry smirk that Uchiha Mikoto was not someone to be taken lightly.
But life carried on, and another colourless year drifted by before the vivacious colours of pink and green once again invaded his world.
“Baka!” Itachi stirred from his kitchen chair, ears perking at the voices drifting through the open window. “Don’t touch that! Mikoto-san’s never going to invite us back at this rate!”
“Dobe,” Sasuke’s voice joined the fray, laced heavily with annoyance. “That was a wedding present to my okaa-san.”
“Ehh?” a third voice joined in, and Itachi quickly identified him as the Kyuubi container. “I didn’t mean to! Oh no. If Mikoto-san never invites us back I’ll never get to eat her delicious shrimp again!”
The soft laughter belonging to his mother was the only reply the blonde got, before Mikoto ushered them through the shoji doors.
“Aniki!” Sasuke looked up in surprise, not expecting his brother to be sitting so casually in the kitchen. A long-term ANBU mission had taken the elder Uchiha from their family home for the past five months, and Sasuke, with his incurable case of hero worship almost jumped at the sight of his brother. Almost. At the last moment, he reigned in his excitement, replacing his would-have been pounce with a tentative Uchiha-smile. “When did you get back?”
“This morning,” Itachi replied, standing up as fluid as water. From his peripheral, he picked up the delicate blush that had spread across the pinkette’s face at the deep baritone of his voice. “They are...?”
“Idiots,” Sasuke offered, earning him a hard smack on the arm and an angered protest. Mikoto shot him a glare, shooing them into the kitchen.
“His friends from the Academy,” the beautiful woman said in passing as she followed them back into the room, Itachi close on her heels. An amused smirk tugged at Itachi’s lips as he walked in after, eyeing the girl sitting demurely at the table. “Introduce yourselves, dears.”
Naruto wasted no time in beaming at the taller teen, stating with a near-yell that he was Uzumaki Naruto, future Hokage. Sakura though, at the sight of the elder Uchiha seemed to have lost her fierce temper and bubbly, outgoing persona. When he turned his oynx orbs on her, the blush that had already been crawling across her face spread like wildfire, and in a vain attempt to hide her embarrassment, tilted her face downwards. In her haste, she missed the dance of amusement flash across his eyes.
“Haruno Sakura,” she supplied finally, deciding to throw caution to the wind. She blinked her twin emeralds up at him, throwing him a tentative, demure yet bright smile. When he said nothing, her left hand shot up nervously to tuck a wayward cerise strand back behind her ears. In that moment when their eyes met, though it was for the briefest of fleeting seconds, he had seen the recognition and remembrance in her bright eyes.
It would seem that he wasn’t the only one that remembered their encounter a year prior.
Sasuke, having never seen his pink haired friend act so timid before, narrowed his eyes at the duo. But he remained his silence, not wanting to annoy his aniki on the first day of his return; there’d be plenty more chances for that. Instead, he turned to his mother, a quick “what’s for dinner?” falling from his lips.
“Shrimp tempura, seeing as Naruto-kun loves them so much!” the woman replied, swivelling her head enough to beam at the boy she was quickly starting to consider her third son. This elicited a whooping cry of joy from the blonde, causing him to nearly bowl the table over in the process. This earned him a bruise to match Sasuke’s, the deadliest of Uchiha glares and an imperceptible twitch from the eldest.
“How was the mission?” Sasuke turned, returning his gaze to his impossibly handsome brother.
“Adequate,” was Itachi’s only curt reply, and the steel in his eyes spoke heavily to Sasuke of all the unspoken words. In his childish haze, Sasuke tried to pry as much information from Itachi about his missions as possible, wanting desperately for details of the life he wished to someday lead. His elder brother had chastised him so often for asking repeatedly for classified details that the former no longer wished to waste more words on the subject, exasperated as he was.
“You are all in the same class?” Itachi asked, turning his gaze once more to the timid girl sitting opposite him.
“Yeah!” Naruto answered instead, blurting out the word so fast that Sakura didn’t even have a chance to digest the meaning of Itachi’s words, busy as she was revelling in the milky silk that was his voice. “We’re just as good as your stick-in-the-as-” Sakura shot him a deathly glare, daring him to be his vulgar self in the presence of such a man, and a nervous chuckle escaped Naruto’s lips. “-butt! That’s what I meant; stick-in-the-butt brother! Believe it!”
Beside him, he heard his little, foolish little brother mutter a quiet ‘if I’m stuck with these two morons for our entire genin career...’, and almost smirked in wry amusement.
“The food is almost ready!” Mikoto’s voice sang, and the younger trio shot up from their respective chairs immediately. Over the past months that have found the three forming a rather unconventionally close friendship, the amount of days they spent eating at the Uchiha compound increased so much so that they spent nearly two nights a week eating together at the Uchiha home. They learned the hard way that while they would be more than hazardous if they tried to cook, doing their part by setting the table was compulsory. Setting the table meant delicious food to eat, and sitting around on your ass meant that you got to stare at the delicious food.
Itachi’s eyes traced the girl’s movements as she scurried from the cutlery drawer back to the table, a contented smile on her face as she laughed softly at her friends bickering in the background. “Don’t call me a baka - who’s the one that fried the tree by accident today?” Naruto burst out in a triumphant tone, smug that he had finally remembered some dirt on the young Uchiha.
“Baka. At least I can fry a tree.”
“Sakura-chan!” the former whined, nearly dropping his stack of plates in the process. “Why do we even bother hanging out with this guy?”
“Because we love Mikoto-san’s shrimp entirely too much to give Sasuke-kun up,” she replied without missing a beat, ignoring the deep scowl set on Sasuke’s face as she floated past him. When she reached Itachi again however, the slight pause in her steps and momentary look of surprise set on her face made him wonder fleetingly if she had forgotten his presence.
The ghost of that same violent expression of subconscious pondering befell her features again before it melted finally into a smile with all the warmth of spring. “Are you well, Itachi-san?”
“Quite well,” was his curt reply, his face expressionless as he surveyed her with piercing crimson orbs.
“Er, well-” she stammered, growing increasingly nervous under his unwavering scrutiny. “You should rest well! I mean, you must be tired. It was a long mission, right? Right,” she finished for herself, the blush now shading her face unforgivingly. She let her bright emeralds roam his perfect features once more before swivelling around with agility of her later years.
“Baka!” she gasped, smacking Naruto upside his head. “That’s not a bowl!”
Itachi turned his gaze out the window where the glaring moon was making its presence known and tuned out the mindless droning of childish banter around him. Long repressed thoughts of pink tinted with glowing viridian and petals of silk drifted into his mind once more as her soprano laughter pierced his thoughts.
They were only at the beginning of the bridge that would be their future, but at this moment, with her picture of innocent smiles and forgiving laughter, he let the past year leave him.
Like this, he could feel at peace - even for a little while.