Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

She caught the last ring before the phone had a chance to go to voicemail. A small grunt left her slightly parted lips as she squeezed through the twin doors, the rubber edging pulled apart from her shoulders. She did not stop her stride, stepping onto the platform, ignoring the less-than-impressed looks she was on the receiving end of by a face she barely looked at long enough to discern anything of interest.

"Hello?" She pressed her ear closer to her phone, the one being propped up by her shoulder. "Mom? Can you speak louder?" She asked, apologizing under her breath as her slightly-heeled boots clicked-clacked against the grimy once-white tile.

"Sakura!" The voice of her mother came from the other end of the phone. Loud. Strong. Agitated. "Why have you been ignoring my calls?" Mebuki Haruno demanded with so much irateness that the image of the frown she was surely dawning infiltrated her daughter's mind without prompt.

"Mom," she pushed herself against the railing, making herself as small as possible as she climbed the stairs. "I was on the train," she explained after she mentally reminded herself to take a breath - or three. "That's why I couldn't answer your last two calls."

I did text you to say the same thing.

"Sakura, I think the neighbors are watching me again," her mother's voice was nervous - shaky and scared.

The woman sighed. Both her feet were firmly on the same level, she could feel the sun on her face - the rays that poked through the giant metal and glass structures that touched the sky. She was still getting used to it, going to work when the sun was out instead of coming back from work under similar conditions. Even if it had been nearly a year.

"Mom," Sakura's voice was gentle; her hand traced a path over and over again between her brows and her hairline. "Did you take your medication this morning?" She stepped away from the entrance of the subway, not before earning some dirty looks. Her head was bowed slightly, she was careful about her footing - mindful of a suspicious puddle of water on the concrete stamped to give the appearance of brick. Moss grew between the cracks, the only green on the expanse of dull gray broken up with weathered wrappers that once held vibrancy at the beginning of their lives. "Mom?" She asked full well knowing the answer.

"Sakura," Mebuki sighed and there was a pause. The longer the woman waited, the further her heart sank. "They leave my mouth so bitter. And dry."

"I know Mom," she made a sympathetic sound as she readjusted the black handbag on the crook of her elbow. Her green eyes just made out the time on her wrist. "But can you try?" She did not care if her voice was pleading. She stood under the partial protection of the blue and white umbrella that covered the stall. "And there are hard candies-"

"In the drawer right next to the medicine," there was another sigh almost in resignation, "I remember. I'll take it."

Her lips coated in a clear balm pulled into a smile. "Thank you, Mom." Sakura pulled her red peacoat closer to her neck. It failed to ease away the goosebumps the chill poked up.

"I need bread. And milk. Eggs too."

I made a grocery run just two days ago. Did you leave the milk and eggs out?

"I didn't bring my car today," she answered apologetically in response to the wry tone of her mother's voice. "I can swing by on Friday. Will you be okay until then?"

"You're too busy." Despite being miles away in a different city, the phone captured the disappointment in Mebuki's voice as clearly as if Sakura were in the room with her. "You work too much."

Someone has to.

"I'll see you on Friday, Mom," she promised with a smile plastered on her face. Her eyes scanned the indistinctive faces of the crowd that shuffled past - forcing her even further away from the street and toward the red brick building.

"Fine," Mebuki clicked her tongue.

"Be sure to take your medicine," she saw a gap in the traffic and she stepped forward to cut across it. She moved without hesitation.

"I said I would. Stop being such a nag."

"I love you," Sakura's smile did not reduce in size despite the strain being added to her eyes.

There was a sigh on the line. "I love you, Bug." The sound of a noisy kiss being blown reached Sakura's ears. "Don't forget my cold cuts and Cheddar's tuna."

"I won't," Sakura nodded her head dutifully as the grocery items were already added to her mental list.

"I'll make your favorite, chicken katsu," Mebuki's voice contained her smile.

That's not my favorite.

"My mouth is watering already," she waited at the edge of the sidewalk, her eyes were on the sign; the one that said it was not safe to walk yet. Traffic whizzed by. "I'll talk to you later, Mom."

"Bye-bye, Sakuto."

Sakura sighed, pulling the phone from her ear. She stared at the black screen. Her reflection wore the heaviness she felt inside her chest on its face - in its eyes. A chirp and shove behind her broke her from her thoughts in a harsh alert that the world had started to move again. She slipped the phone into her coat's pocket and held her black bag close to her. She shook her head and rolled her shoulders all before stepping into the intersection.

Three blocks. She had three blocks to adjust her face.

Plenty of time.

xXx

"It's going to rain," he said mildly. Reflective eyes peered up at the clouds that melted into the dreary gray sky. The beige brick was rough against the wool of his black jacket, and silk of his white shirt. A calloused hand went around his neck to grab it in a loose hold, loosening what was not there.

"Wasn't in the forecast," a man with bright red hair and dark eyes said in a bored tone. He eyed his companion from top to bottom. "Where's your umbrella?"

"Not here," he answered with matched disinterest.

"Tsk," the man scowled as he leaned back against the solid side wall of the storefront. "You know I hate small talk."

The blond's lips pulled into a small half-smile. His cobalt eyes kept returning to one end of the crosswalk over and over and over again.

"Do you know what I hate even more than small talk?" The redhead asked with a chin jutted out in contempt.

"Silence?" Minato asked almost playfully, his eyes twinkling.

"Waiting," the man corrected with a deadpan.

The blond laughed. "I always make it worth your while, Pinocchio."

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?" He asked dryly and with an eye roll, eyes that peered at the world with aloofness that hid their true focus. "Do I need to threaten to kill you again?"

"It's only Monday," Minato countered without missing a beat as if oblivious to the switch in the man's demeanor. "Your last reminder resonated enough."

The redhead scoffed in clear disagreement but he let it slide, just as he always did. "It doesn't even make any sense," he said with a nonchalance that neither of them believed. "If anything it suits you better." He dipped his chin down into his jacket, hiding his chapped, colorless lips.

Minato wrinkled his nose for but a moment at his companion's - Sasori's - comment. He raked a hand through his long shaggy hair all without disturbing what was tucked behind his ear - a feat that only came through repetition.

"Too late, I got my nickname a long time ago."

"Yellow Flash," Sasori scoffed. "Like you're twelve or something."

"Or something," Minato's voice trailed off, growing distant as his memories pulled his attention - pulling him from the reality he was grounded into a world that ceased to exist.

Sasori's lips pressed together in disapproval that his mate was too in his head to notice. His eyes moved to the otherside of the crosswalk, the one with trees and color. His tugged into a smirk, he shoved a hand painted with purple polish into his front right pant pocket.

"Don't look now," he began with no intention of an end.

A blond head snapped up without hesitation. The mask - not stoic or composed - was replaced with one of mild annoyance. Eyes colored with cobalt narrowed in accusation at the man, to which Sasori simply tapped the side of his nose.

"Well played," Minato grumbled, ignoring the way his insides had reacted.

Sasori's smirk was very self-pleased. Brown eyes stared up at the sky through the skyscrapers. "Let's see what comes first. The rain or trouble."

The blond would not dignify the comment with a verbal response even if he had the perfect one lined up - which he did not.

xXx

She smiled in thanks to the door that was being propped open for her. Sakura picked up her pace to ease the burden of the common courtesy that she did not think twice of when being on the other end of it.

"Thank you, Dr. Yakushi," she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Her low bun sat at the base of her neck still intact despite the morning she was having.

"Sakura, please," Kabuto sighed in an overtly exaggerated manner. It would have been more convincing if he was not grinning nearly from ear to ear. His dark eyes sparkled behind his round glasses. "We've talked about this."

"Did we?" She quirked a brow, dipping her head as she slipped through the door. She fell in step with him. "Are you just getting in?" She asked to fill the air with something other than the clamor of voices and the clicking of her too-loud shoes - the ones she knew she should not have let her best friend convince her to buy.

"I did," Kabuto answered easily as he stepped first through the metal detectors. "I saw your reflection in the door," he explained. "The pink and red are hard to miss."

Sakura laughed politely, not quite fully prepared with a witty or charming retort. "Good morning, Mr. Umino," she smiled at the security guard who was already wearing a bright smile and kind expression.

"Dr. Haruno," Iruka greeted back. "Dr. Yakushi," he dipped his head in the direction of the white-haired doctor.

Kabuto brought his badge - the one that hung around his neck with a red hospital-provided lanyard - over to the reader which separated them from the guard. He fished through his pockets for his phone and wallet only to deposit them into a blue tub that awaited. Kabuto was in the process of removing his silver wristwatch as Sakura handed her bag to go through the X-ray machine.

"Such a hassle," he said under his breath on the other side of the metal detector that he walked through. He worked to refill his pockets and slip on his watch.

"Sorry about that, Dr. Yakushi," Iruka said with a sheepish chuckle. "We try to keep the process as smooth as we can."

"Mr. Umino," Sakura said, walking behind the doctor with her red coat folded over her arm. "You're keeping us safe and all it costs us is a few minutes. Thank you for all your hard work," she beamed at him, taking the handbag that he was holding out for her. They needed the extra precautions. Especially after what happened not even ten miles from Konoha Med, at Mercy Leaf where a bereaved patient shot and killed two surgeons who he believed to be culpable in his wife's death. It had shaken everyone up to just how lax security was in public places.

"Dr. Haruno," Iruka's face turned red at her words. "I'm just doing my job," he mumbled out in one breath. "No need to thank me."

"Then there's no reason to apologize," she countered in a balance struck between firm and kind. "Is there?" She asked with a raised brow.

"No," Iruka stumbled over the word. "I suppose not."

She grinned, her jade eyes darted between their faces. "Have a great day, Mr. Umino. Dr. Yakushi." She pulled her bag to her shoulder. Her heels clicked away feigning the confidence that she herself did not have.

xXx

A smear of red moved across her bottom lip. The pricks from a pair of baby-blue eyes staring at her intently had reached a level that rivaled razors. Tiny. Sharp. Precise. She inserted the wand back into the container, baring her teeth into the small mirror to check for flecks of red against bone. She ran her tongue along the top row for good measure, taking the time to study her mascara. It was not completely symmetrical but it was not overtly noticeable to even her eyes. Others would notice even less. Well, most others. Her best friend notwithstanding. With purpose, she avoided the blue irises as she stepped away from her cubby closet, closing the door.

"Coffee?" Ino asked, arms crossed and gaze judgemental, buffing her nails against the lapel of her white doctor's coat. It covered the plum-colored dress that fit her perfectly - as it should because it was custom-tailored which held true for over eighty percent of Ino's gorgeous wardrobe.

"Sure," Sakura smiled at her, wearing her navy blue scrubs under her white coat. "Third floor?" She asked innocently. It was the worst-kept secret that the third floor knew how to brew their coffee better than any other floor.

Ino rolled her eyes and scoffed. "You did not just apply floozy-red lip gloss to run up to the third floor."

"Floozy-red?" She asked incredulously with a sound somewhere between a scoff and a snort. "Really, Ino?" Sakura frowned at her best friend. Due to the way Ino was standing, only the 'psych' part of the embroidered 'psychiatry' was visible on her left breast pocket.

Short for psycho.

"I spent the weekend with Granny," Ino retorted dismissively as she inspected her nails, clearly not happy with the on-the-whim manicure. She must have tried a new place. Meticulously well-kept stiletto nails painted in a nude hue that did not violate hospital policy.

"Is it too much?" Sakura's pink brows furrowed together. She had kept her eye makeup neutral - as Ino had drilled into her when she met her as a clueless med student that just started dabbling into the world of makeup because she had very limited disposal income to spend not looking like the first cousin of the walking dead - in favor of a bold lip but now very real second-guessing crept in.

"It's fine," Ino snapped at her, her eyes darted to the clock. "Tick-tock, Forehead. I have a consultation in forty-three minutes."

"You're the worst," Sakura grumbled, she reached over toward the pale wooden bench that divided the two rows of cubbies. Her fingers curled around a collapsed umbrella - red. Sakura's black and white sneakers squeaked against the floors all the while she walked toward the door and the blonde gatekeeper.

"Yes, but I can pick out colors," Ino looped her arm around Sakura's, "and that red looks sinful on you. You could knock just about anyone over dead," she grinned in a manner that was bad news. "Not that you're going to do anything about it," she concluded with a frustrated sigh.

"You should be nicer to the person who is buying you coffee." The retort was without heat as she did not have teeth to sink into the sentiment. Sakura pulled at the hair framing her face. The hallway was becoming smaller and smaller as more and more of the hospital was being put behind them. She saw green in her peripherals. She turned her head to catch more of the lush, green space.

"You should just invest in the cafe's stock. It would be a better investment than those loyalty cards." Ino's plump glossy pink lips tugged into a frown. "When are you taking lunch today?"

"Late," Sakura answered with a sigh. She just had a feeling today was going to be hectic. "You better get started without me."

"Hm," Ino shook her head. "Let me know if that changes."

"Will do. And I will have you know that I have enough for a free drink," Sakura huffed. Her shoes squeaked in tandem with the click of Ino's very expensive heels.

"So you're not even paying for my drink?" Ino asked haughtily, peering down her nose at her friend.

"Oh Pig," Sakura said with a solemn tone, "I'm paying for it," her hand was pressed to her chest in what was a self-consoling gesture. "Steeply."

"So dramatic." The blonde moved with purpose in confident strides as if she owned the very tile she stomped on. "I'll be sure to not catch you when you inevitably pass out from staring at the sun too long."

"Not so loud," Sakura shushed her. Her green eyes darted, scanning their surroundings. It was only when she was convinced no one was paying them any mind that she glared at Ino. "I don't know why I bother."

"Because," Ino began, patiently. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be up on the third floor getting your coffee and staring at a poster of Suna as your only view."

It was true but Ino did not have to call her out like that. Besides, Suna was pretty. The double doors opened. A gust of wind pushed her hair back. They stepped into the small curve where the emergency vehicles unloaded patients. It was quiet but it could all change with next to no warning.

Better move fast.

"You know," Ino began where she had left off, not discouraged in the slightest by Sakura's silence. It was as good as an admission to her. "It's getting pitiful. I think you might have just met your match."

"What do you mean?" She asked despite everything inside of her - it clenched up - screaming that keeping her mouth shut was the only strategy for these kinds of things. Ino grew bored. It was best to let the fire kill itself. Talking only added more kindling either to be used now or at a later time. Ino had the memory of an elephant. She forgot nothing.

"Sunny might just be as clueless and dense as you," Ino's up-curled lip was far from kind. "It takes less time to make a baby than the two of you have been making eyes at each other."

Walked right into that one.

Sakura chewed on her tongue to contain her anger. Anger that Ino would throw back at her two-fold in a neatly packaged burn. She might have a sharp tongue and a keen mind but Ino was ruthless. Ino broke people apart for a living. Nine out of ten times it was with the intention of building them back up but Sakura - Sakura's love life or lack thereof - was the exception. It was that one time. She glared at the crosswalk sign as if it was the reason why she could not simply remove herself from her predicament and not the arm that was snaked around hers. The one that if she pulled away from would be as good as waving a white flag.

"Sakura," Ino sighed, her tone shifted. It was designed less to cut and more to soothe. "Forehead, I get it. After what happened - after what you saw - you're bound to have some issues. We all do. But you're holding onto it. You need to let go."

"I just need coffee," Sakura gumbled. They stepped into the crosswalk. More and more bodies filled it. There was barely room to step, much less breathe. "And maybe a pastry."

I deserve some sugar.

"And something nice to look at?" Ino asked her without so much as a glance as she wove them through the foot traffic with ease. The blonde expertly ignored all the lingering eyes and the smiles being directed at her. The smiles that always came with things attached.

Sakura hummed in agreement. "I'm not looking for anything right now."

And that would be fine. More than fine, if Ino had not been hearing the same thing - or various variations of it - for the better part of a decade.

"So I take it you said no to the blind date your mom has been pushing onto you?" Ino let go of Sakura's arm when they were on the other side of the crosswalk. She could make out the yellow door of the shop just on the other side of the street. Her pointy shoes crunched in the gravel. The green of the trees was muted by the lack of light from the sun hidden away by the heavy clouds.

"No," Sakura shook her head. Her frown matched the weather. Glum. "She said it's her old college friend's son," she stopped herself just in time from gnawing on her bottom lip - the real reason she disliked lip stain of any kind. "I just don't have a good feeling about it."

"Right," Ino rolled her eyes. She used her elbow to jab the button on the pole. A robotic voice started to chant "wait" at them as they did just that. "And it has nothing to do with the fully committed delusional in-your-head relationship you have with Sunny?"

"Will you stop?!" Sakura asked in a huff, close to throwing her hands in the air. "Not everyone is a headcase you know."

"Oh, I know," Ino tapped her foot in growing agitation at the sound of cars, the smog, the leers, and the robot man that was telling them to wait. "But you, Forehead, are a bonafide grade-A case study. I should use you to get some grants. There's this new experimental procedure-"

"Enough already. You made your point." And then some. Sakura let out a sigh when they were within six feet of the door. Her eyes had registered the empty walls of the shop. She feigned reading the hours of the establishment that were affixed with adhesive letters and numbers. She had it memorized; it was all an excuse to scan the heads through the window. Her stomach fluttered when her eyes found a splash of yellow not too far from a lick of red. Sakura did not wait for Ino to comment - because she could not help herself, it was compulsive - before she opened the door and slipped inside.

The line was long. The tables were filled. The smell of coffee was a much-welcome punch to the face.

"Come in! Come in!" A jovial booming voice waved them over, his grin was bright and carefree. The tall man with long white hair wiped his hands on a white tea towel. He set it on the wooden counters just as the two women bypassed the line - a perk provided by their white coats - he rested his elbows on the very same counter and grinned. "The usual ladies?"

"Yes please," Sakura smiled at him, already pulling her wallet from her pocket. She shoved a handful of dollar bills into the tip jar. A tan-colored card - the size of a credit card - moved from her fingers to the table.

"Ah!" Jiraiya let out a small cheer. "A free drink! A new card." He stamped away, completing the bottom row with a red circle inside of a black square. "Thank you for your loyalty."

"Thank you for having the best coffee," Sakura handed him cash in exchange for the new card that was already stamped twice. She tucked it into her wallet.

"Within walking distance," Ino quipped from over her shoulder. "We'll have two cheese danishes too." She tapped her nail against the display case. "And warm them up for us this time."

"Of course, Dr. Yamanaka. Is there anything else I can do for you?" He asked with a glint in his eye as he gazed upon the blonde with open appreciation.

"How about your job, Gramps?" A boy - no older than sixteen - with brown hair and hazel eyes griped, elbowing the geezer in the ribs. "We're at capacity here!"

"Can it, kid," Jiraiya snapped before recovering to smile smoothly at the two women eyeing him blankly. "Please forgive my nephew. It's the in-between stages you see."

"In between?" Sakura asked.

"In between now and when we can ship him off to college stage. It's too late for boarding school. My sister checked," he sighed longsufferingly.

"Gramps!" Nawaki called over his shoulder, his hands were full with the espresso machine. "It's doing it again!" The machine groaned and the amount of steam coming out of it nearly filled the front of the shop.

"If you'll excuse me," Jiraiya tapped the counter and directed one last smile that missed the mark of being charming.

Sakura and Ino backed away from the counter just as the man rolled up his olive green sleeves. He gave it three loud whacks nearly shouting obscenities every time.

"I'm going to go get us a table," Ino announced, her blue eyes catching something to the far left of the room.

"Okay," the pinkette furrowed her brow - too confused to ask why Ino would do such a thing when their order was to go. Sakura shook her head clear of her muddled, sluggish brain and walked over to the other side of the counter, where the 'Pick Up' sign painted in green block letters hung. She waited trying desperately not to let it show just how affected she was by a pair of eyes staring at her.

xXx

He did not bother to utter a half-baked excuse or pleasantly before stepping away from the furthest table in the corner of the coffee shop. It had the best view of the door and thus a vantage of the place. Sasori did not look up from his phone. He was nearly folded in two, deeming it too much work to actually lift his red mug. Instead, he simply leaned forward to place his lips on the edge and drank when he needed to, even going as far as using a spoon to aid in the process.

Minato smiled without meaning as he waited for the people in line to shuffle to create enough space for him to slip through. Her back was to him. Her unique hair gathered in a loose bun that sat low, hair framing her face. She was playing the role of nonchalant. He did not miss the way her fingers faltered from the steady tapping pattern they were engaged in prior to his arrival. Nor the twitch between her shoulder blades. She knew it was him. All without turning her head.

She licked her red-red lips slowly before she made any further movement. A flash of emerald had his heart skipping a beat. It sped up instead of regaining its normal rhythm. He smiled at her. Ever so slightly; his eyes warming more than anything.

Her facial muscles twitched in response. Her gaze held his. Without prejudice. Without restraint. Open. Much too open. It was as if time slowed. But he knew that was not the case. It was he who had slowed. He had ceased moving. He stood there. Stranded. Unable to look back every bit as much as he was unable to step forward. Because that would be much too forward. A line he could not cross.

Not yet anyway.

Captivated. He was captivated by her gaze. In all the things that made her catch his eye all those months ago. He lost count of exactly how many. Or rather, he never made an effort to count how many. It would only feed into his unease about this whole thing. Her red lips called for his attention - they did. But it was her eyes that he found himself unable to look away from. The sounds of the cafe blurred until it was all an indistinguishable hum. It was not entirely unpleasant. It was inconsequential.

xXx

Her mouth was open. Like open-open. Because she was a deer in headlights - in warm blue headlights - in the worst possible way. If a part of her knew that her mouth was open, there was nothing she could do about it. Not when faced with him. Shaggy hair but not unruly. Soft from just its appearance. The sides fell to his shoulders, grazing the material of his black suit. His white shirt - the top two buttons of which were undone - was tucked into his fitted pants. No belt. Black leather loafers completed his outfit.

Uniform. Must be a uniform.

Because it was all she ever saw him in. A suit and nice shoes. Always dark. Never a tie. Sometimes a belt. It did not matter if it was blistering hot or freezing cold, that was what he wore. Always. She had never even seen him take his jacket off, much less roll up his sleeves.

He's so pretty.

And it was alarming how quickly she regressed whenever he was around. There was no shortage of attractive men she had seen - she worked closely with firefighters and paramedics, people who cared about their fitness and how they presented - so why was it so easy? So easy for him to throw her out of sorts with just one look.

Why?

A bell chimed followed by the sound of her name, pulling her attention - and eyes - from his to her left. Two drinks were placed on the counter with a thud. She blinked slowly, reaching for the cardboard sleeves. By the time she had both drinks in her hands, he was gone. She turned her head catching just a streak of blond as the door closed shut. She shivered.

xXx

He pulled the cigarette tucked behind his ear to run it through his hands. Over and over and over. The repetitive motion helped ease away the frustration. The sky was even more gray now. The air was less nippy and more chilled. The smell of pre-rain filled his nose. It did nothing to alleviate the tension that built up behind his eyes.

The door opened. He did not lift his head. Thinking. Ruminating. His mind worked it over and over and over again. He believed himself to be patient. But like all beliefs at one point or another, it was being tested. Excessively it felt like to him at least. Blond brows bridged together when a pair of pointy shoes came into his line of sight. That was after a wall of floral scent - of some kind - overpowered anything around him. He tilted his head up to a pair of blue eyes. As light as the sky on a cloudless sunny summer day.

"Hi," she smiled at him. "My friend Sakura," she spoke quickly but clearly. "The pink-haired doctor - ER believe it or not - you're always staring at, likes long walks on the beach, reading, animals, and guys who make the first move." The blonde crossed her arms in a very self-assured kind of manner. "She likes tacos."

His blonde brows shot up to his hairline. He blinked, not quite sure what to make of this situation. It was far from every day that someone approached him and made conversation. Granted most of it was Sasori and his brooding's fault but Minato was not complaining.

"I-Ino!" A voice sputtered, aghast. Mortified. He turned his head to his right, eyes locked with wide emerald.

"What?" The blonde woman - Ino - asked with her hands on her hips. "Did you get the cheese danishes?"

The pinkette - Sakura, the ER doctor - gaped at the woman as she held the coffee in her hands. She was still partially in the door. She let out a small squeaking sound - it was not the hinges of the door - when someone rather rudely asked her to move. She turned around and apologized profusely. The whole thing just added to her embarrassment.

He was frowning, following the path the man who had just fallen short of shouting "Move" at the good doctor had disappeared to. Just what was happening to society? Did manners mean nothing anymore?

"Well?" Ino asked Sakura, unimpressed.

"No!" Sakura shot back. She opened her mouth to presumably speak but she closed it when something landed on her cheek. She tilted her head up. Her dark lashes fluttered closed. "Shit!" She hunched over, tilting her head toward the ground.

"Get in here," Ino commanded with a scowl. She stepped back as much as the curb would allow her to open her purple umbrella. The pink-haired woman stepped under it.

Cold rain started to pelt him on the shoulder, on his head. Drops dripped along the side of his neck to disappear between the threads of his shirt, darkening it. Turning it almost translucent. He was still in a partial daze as he watched them flitter off in the direction of the crosswalk back to the safety of the hospital. He was frowning once more but this time at the pinkette pulling away from the protection of the purple canopy. Her pink hair was exposed but for a second before red covered the locks. She was running back in his direction.

His eyes darted to her feet, registering the short boots.

Sensible.

He was not prepared to watch her break an ankle trying to run in the pencil-thin heels her friend wore. He could not think of a worse start to his day.

Sakura's face was flushed and she was a little out of breath. "Here," she all but shoved the wet umbrella to him, nearly taking out his eye. He caught the handle - his fingers brushing hers - only out of reflex. Before he could work out any words of protest or thanks, she was off running again away from him. He stood outside, under the loaned umbrella until the spec of purple was indistinguishable from anything and everything else.

What just happened?

xXx

"I can't believe you!" Sakura stood much too close and much too aggressively under the concrete portico of the hospital.

"What?" Ino shot back, matching Sakura's energy perfectly. "You should be thanking me!"

"Thanking you?!" Sakura chuckled in disbelief. Shellshocked. "For what exactly? Making me seem like a total loser!"

"You have zero, zero, ground to stand on. You don't know what you're doing!" Ino glared over Sakura's shoulder at a pair of nurses that were standing too close and with a little bit too much interest. They scurried along.

"Well, he didn't need to know that!" She pulled at her wet hair. "I like tacos?!"

"You do," Ino pressed her lips together. "You didn't wear waterproof mascara. You look like a drowned raccoon," she licked her thumb pad and reached for Sakura's face. "You have money now, stop buying the cheap stuff."

"Stop that!" Sakura slapped her hand before she could make contact.

"You're right," Ino said with a sigh. "You're much too much of a mess to eat tacos on a first date. I should have picked an easier food like sushi." She made a face. "But then kissing would be out of the question if he's allergic to shellfish."

"I am going to kill you," Sakura seethed, pointing her finger to Ino's chest.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," a voice drawled out lazily.

"Keep it moving, Hatake," Ino snapped at him, waving him along. "Nothing to see here."

"Detective Hatake," Sakura's eyes softened for a second as she turned around to smile at the man. Her eyes scanned his person. "Not here for yourself I hope."

"Nothing like that, Dr. Haruno," his eyes crinkled as he smiled under his navy face mask. "Here to get a victim statement," he glanced at his watch. "Which I am already an hour and a half late for so if this is not urgent…," he let his voice trail off.

"I won't kill her here, or in your jurisdiction," Sakura promised with a sincere smile. "Or today."

"Good, good," Kakashi held up his hand in a wave. "See you later."

"You were just staring at him," Ino said in a measurably lower volume once the man had disappeared through the ER main entrance.

"It's called romance! I was laying a foundation," Sakura said through clenched teeth.

"You would know," Ino rolled her eyes.

"Ino! He's a total stranger! How could you encourage him like that?" She demanded to know. Her boiling blood needed something to ease the heat.

"That's why I did it, Dummy! You need to actually talk to someone to get to know them," Ino's voice whipped with exasperation. "And don't give me flowery bullshit of reading each other's eyes or looking into each other's souls. That is not real. Just like the last year of your foundation laying."

"Ten months!" Sakura corrected. "And he smokes!"

"Have you ever seen him smoke?" Ino challenged her. "He doesn't smell like a smoker. His nails are clean." She had checked. Twice.

"Why would he carry around a cigarette then?" She felt insane for humoring the madwoman.

"Ask him," Ino suggested with a shrug.

"I don't even know what he does!" Sakura groaned, guttural and feral. "He could be an ax murderer."

"Unlikely. He has excellent taste in shoes. Style actually. When's the last time you read about an ax-murder that wears Konan?"

"There's a first time for everything," Sakura said dryly. Of course, Ino would be impressed with his wardrobe. Even Ino did not wear Konan and that killed her. The woman only spent money like she did to get on Konan's radar so that the super exclusive stylist would pass along her personal contact card to the stores Ino shopped at for the blonde to get the connection.

Rich people are so exhausting.

"He could be a lawyer," Ino pointed out almost brightly. "That would be perfect for you. You could argue about everything with him."

"What kind of lawyer doesn't wear a tie?"

"Another thing you could ask him when he asks you out on a date." Ino's eyes glittered. "We should go shopping."

"You're getting way ahead of yourself," Sakura eyed the concrete wall to her right, wondering how many times she would have to hit her head to forget all this happened. The tricky part was avoiding lasting brain damage everywhere else.

"I waited almost a decade for this day to come. Icebergs move faster than you." It was true. She had seen a documentary with her Granny this weekend.

"Still better than falling in love every other week."

Ino scoffed, offended. "How dare you, Forehead?" She did not wait for an answer. "Sometimes you have to kiss a few frogs before you find your prince."

"A lot," Sakura spat out. "You kissed enough frogs to fill an army company."

"Sakura," Ino hissed in warning. She held up her hands, one palm flat and open and the other wrapped around her coffee. "Seriously, Forehead, time out."

Sakura exhaled all the air in her lungs. She waited. She could feel her anger dissolving just enough to think clearly again. Mostly.

"Sakura," Ino's expression had softened to become gentle. "You can't keep running away when things get real." She paused to measure her words. "Or when there is a prospect of realness."

Green eyes lowered to the ground. "I know." She did. She understood that it was a pattern for her. She was only attracted to someone - she only fantasized about someone - when she knew deep down there was no shot or chance of it being real - of it being anything more than just a daydream. Because it was fun to picture. It was fun to think about. It was nice. But only when it was a hypothetical. "I know," Sakura repeated, running her fingers along her forehead. "I know."

"So we're okay?" Ino asked, voice coaxing Sakura to look at her.

"We will be, once you buy me tacos," Sakura turned unceremoniously on her heels and stalked off.

"This bitch." Ino shook her head, closing her umbrella as she followed after her.

xXx

She pressed her fingertips to the gap between her shoulder blades - the trapezius muscle - in an attempt to compensate with pressure for hours of bad posture. A small sigh left Sakura's lips just as she adjusted her coat. She lined the buttons and did them slowly; not bothering to redo them after she was left with one button without a match. The left side of her long peacoat hung lower than the right. She used the wall for support while she zipped the back of her boots. Without even thinking about it, she pulled a red lanyard from her purse. The keys clattered against the plastic cylinder. Pink. She slipped it into the pocket of her coat, her finger traced the edges of the red button.

Sakura closed her cubby and stepped out of the changing room. She nodded her head and smiled at the guard on duty. The lights were slightly dimmer than they were when she started her shift, as they did not need to compete with the brightness outside. The wall that was composed of mostly glass spoke to just how late it was. The green space was daunting and almost jungle-like. More shadow and shapes than therapeutic. The small lights at the roots of the plants just made it all the more eerie. She did not linger. Her heeled boots clicked-clacked against the tile until they slid across the concrete.

The polite smile on her face faltered slightly at the sight of a familiar frame. "Dr. Yakushi," she addressed the man who was standing outside the driver-side door of his shiny black sedan. His elbows were on the roof of his car - the roof of which was partially open which was risky given the weather.

You shouldn't be stopped there.

"Sakura," he pushed his glasses up his nose. "All done for the day?"

"I am," she nodded her head; not quite meeting him in the eyes. Her grip around her handbag's handles tightened marginally. "Hope you have a good night," she lifted a foot with intent to step forward and ultimately away.

"Let me give you a ride," he said smoothly before she could do any of what she had planned. "Please."

"That is very kind of you, Dr. Yakushi," she spoke levelly to her colleague - a colleague who had a longer tenure with the hospital than she did. A colleague she had only come to know about more than by name when she made the chance to day shift. "But I wouldn't want to be a bother and I like taking the subway. It gives me a chance to decompress, and catch up on my reading." She jostled her bag to illustrate.

Kabuto's gaze trailed down from her face and landed on the black bag. He was slow to track it back up, either in reluctance or something slightly more sinister. She tried not to let it show on her face just how much her skin crawled at that moment.

"Maybe next time then," he tapped the top of his car. "Goodnight, Sakura. Be safe."

"You too," she smiled. She waited for him to get in his car and drive away - waving to him as he departed - before picking up her feet and walking the two and a half blocks needed to arrive at the stairs that would take her to the platform for her train.

The night was cool - her nose turning pink along with her cheeks was a testament to the fact - so it kept her mostly awake. Her hands were busy, one with her bag and the other holding the pink cylinder in her grip. She kept her eyes off of any singular focus beyond her path. Scanning. She checked her surroundings as she moved. There were three people behind her. They moved at various paces. An elderly woman with a cane, a middle-aged man with a briefcase, and a teenager with over-the-ear headphones on. She listened to their steps. She picked up her pace and moved to walk in the street when a tweaker got a little too close for comfort. He staggered but remained on his feet. From the corner of her eye, she saw him slump under a streetlamp. She held her breath until the elderly woman and teen had made it past him without much incident beyond the man screaming unintelligibly at them.

Sakura crossed the street - careful of the occasional traffic of a car or the even more occasional bike or electric scooter - staying under the light of the street lamps. The moon was bright and large. It was a shame she could not stand back and just observe it. Maybe if she still had some energy after a shower and a meal she zapped in the microwave, she could step out onto her balcony with a glass of wine and watch it. The city was much too bright for stargazing. She did not remember the last time she saw a canopy of stars. She grimaced at the high-pitched squeal and scurrying of feet as a family of rats emerged from the sewer grates. The smell of damp trash - rancid - assaulted her nose. She kept moving.

It was times like these she wondered just why she put up with all this: the traffic, the high cost of living, the stress. Sometimes, some days it just felt like a punishment to breathe. She paused walking, just within two yards of the crosswalk, to reach into her left pocket with her right hand- letting go of the pepper spray she had been clutching. Sakura furrowed her brow at the name that filled her screen.

"Mom?" She asked into the phone on her ear, propped up by her shoulder as her hand found her pocket once more.

"Sakura," Mebuki's tired voice greeted her. "I can't sleep."

"Are you alright?" She asked, using her elbow to push the metal button down. A chime of "wait" filled the quiet.

"I think Cheddar is dying." She sounded distraught. "I'm watching him breathe."

"Cheddar is fine, Mom." Sakura bit back a sigh. She momentarily closed her eyes. "He had a clean bill of health from the vet, remember?"

"That vet is an idiot!" Her mother accused tersely. "You need to find a new one. Stop being cheap."

"Okay, okay," Sakura's voice was soothing - placating. "I'll look into finding a new vet." It would only be the third one in as many months. She had yet to find one that agreed with Mebuki's belief that cats should eat people food.

Maybe getting her a pet was the wrong call.

Her innermost thoughts went where they always did. Like clockwork.

"Did you go on a walk today?" Sakura asked kindly, as she crossed the street. "With Ms. Ito and Ms. Suzuki?"

"I am not a child, Sakura. I don't need you to set up playdates for me. It's patronizing."

Sakura tried not to let the harshness of her mother's voice cut her. "I didn't mean it that way," she sighed away from the microphone. "I just wanted to know if you've been outside at all." In her heart of hearts, she knew the answer. It was always the same.

"Maybe I can try when Cheddar is feeling better. He needs me right now."

"Okay," Sakura nodded her head.

"What are you doing still up? I didn't wake you did I?"

The woman smiled at the worry in her mother's voice. "No. I was just watching TV," she lied.

"Sakura, you need your rest. Your patients need you to rest," Mebuki scolded her, not unlike she did when Sakura was in elementary school. It took her back to the mornings when Mebuki combed and did her hair in a beautiful French braid. No one could braid like Mebuki could.

"I'll be in bed soon," she pushed down the guilt as she made a hollow promise.

"Good," Mebuki yawned, "goodnight, Bug."

"Goodnight, Mom. Love-," the line clicked. "Love you," she murmured into her phone.

It could be worse. At least I'm not being rained on.

With a sigh, she slipped her phone into her pocket and worked her way down the stairs, leaning against the filthy railing to keep her more or less propped up. Her brain - the part that was active and recording - switched off to allow muscle memory to take over. She waited for her train, thoughts wandering to just how different things could have been if he was still here. The doors opened; a gust of hot air blew in her face. She waited for the handful of people inside to make moves to get up and get off before she stepped inside the train and sank into a seat. Her bag rested on her knees, she pulled a paperback from her purse. She held it in her hands, closed, her eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She blinked slowly. The train started to move.

xXx

There were two silhouettes under the yellow streetlamp that flickered. One was taller than the other but not by all that much. Despite herself, she smiled, she waved over her head. She coaxed her feet to move faster. Her keys jingled in her hand before she made it to them. Nearly two identical faces with soft brown hair and vibrant hazel eyes greeted her with varying expressions.

"Hey there kiddo," Sakura addressed the boy first. "Amaya," she smiled at his mother. "Were the two of you waiting long?" She asked pleasantly.

"No," the boy - nine years old - said with a frown. "You have loud steps."

"Hiro!" His mother groaned into her hand.

Sakura chuckled at his honesty. Her green eyes landed on his mother's exasperated expression. "You could have waited upstairs, you know."

Amaya sighed with a soft nod. "We took a short walk. We were cooped up inside all day because of the rain," the woman explained.

"It smells like wet garbage," the boy complained.

"You're not wrong," Sakura moved closer to the door at the side of the apartment building. The key met its lock, she turned once to the right and there was a click. Sakura pulled the door towards her, holding it open for the mother-and-son pair. "You know the drill, Hiro," she told the boy solemnly.

He nodded his head. He flipped on the light switch on his way to the center of the room. He made a face before he covered his ears with his headphones. He gingerly lowered himself into the leather chair that was waiting already lined with white exam table paper.

"It's okay if it gets wrinkly," Sakura said with a smile as she pulled a stool with the same color upholstery as the chair. "That's what it's made for."

Amaya closed the door behind her. She locked it. Her sandals moved across the tiled floor. She slowly walked to the three chairs on the far back wall. She lowered herself down onto one of them.

"Let's see it," Sakura spoke loud enough for him to hear her over the classical music that played.

Hiro held out his right hand. "It doesn't hurt," he said loudly. His eyes were fixed on the splint that held his ring finger with his pinky.

"That's good," Sakura assessed with a nod. "So I'm going to remove the tape now and the split. Is that okay with you?" She waited for the boy to nod his head. With careful, measured movements she began to remove the tape and do exactly as she had said. "Did you finish the book?" She asked him without looking up from her task.

"I didn't like it," Hiro shook his head. "Hedwig died."

"I know," Sakura grimaced. "I'm still not over it." She lowered his hand to his lap before she stood up on her feet. Amaya's eyes were on her as she moved around the small room. She pulled open drawers, tutting and muttering under her breath.

"She didn't have to go that way," Hiro continued to air his grievances. "I stopped reading after that. It was unfair."

"It really was. They did her so dirty," Sakura agreed emphatically. Her eyes lit up when she found a small blue and green sphere. She walked back to the boy, moving her wrist from side to side.

"A toy?" He asked, reaching for the small globe.

"A stress ball," she settled back into the stool, moving from side to side lazily. A necessity to keep her eyes focused. "It will help with getting your strength back in your hand. Can you try squeezing it?"

The women in the room watched closely as the boy closed his fist slowly. "Doesn't hurt," he commented loudly.

"Lower the volume, Hiro," Amaya called out from behind him. She was no longer seated in a chair. She tapped the boy's headphones. He pressed the button twice to reduce it by a fraction.

"Any discomfort?" Sakura asked the boy. She straightened her spine as her fingers found the bundle of nerves that were giving her grief again. Hiro shook his head. He was completely focused on the task he was given. "Good. I want you to try to do it for five minutes every hour if you can. For no more than a total of an hour. So you can break it up however you want. Try not to go over fifteen minutes in one sitting. We can revisit in a week and change the interval to be longer if needed with less repetition. If you experience any discomfort or pain, stop with the exercises and call me."

"Okay." He lowered the ball, holding it between his hands. "Are we done?"

"We're done," she reached into a drawer that was near the chair. "Red or orange," she asked as her fingers shuffled plastic wrappers.

"Purple," he said, staring at the red of her coat.

"Bold," she held out the purple lollipop for him to take. "Trying something new?"

He nodded his head. Hiro took the purple lollipop from the top, careful to not touch her hand in any way. He jumped off the chair and lowered his headphones around his neck. He turned to face her, looking past her as he brought his right hand to his forehead in a salute.

"Thank you for your service," he spoke to the picture on the wall behind her head.

Sakura smiled softly. She patted her knees and rose to her feet. "Stay out of trouble kid. Let's try not to break anything else while having fun okay?"

The boy did not answer, instead, he bounded off to check - judge - her organization scheme of the various medical supplies she had on shelves in glass jars and containers.

"Thanks, Sakura," Amaya's eyes held relief and gratitude. "I left a lasagna in your freezer. It's already portioned so all you need to do is put it on a plate and microwave it. Dinner rolls are on your table. Should last you a while."

"I could kiss you on the mouth," Sakura said in pure delight. "Thank you."

Amaya sighed, rolling her eyes. The smile on her face was gentle. "It's the least I can do for you taking such good care of Hiro." Her expression changed as guilt crept in. "Speaking of which…do you mind watching him next Wednesday? I really need to pick up an extra shift."

"Amaya," Sakura reached out to squeeze the woman's crossed forearm. "Of course. I love having Hiro. He looks after himself." The soft opening and closing of lids had them turning their head to the boy who was moving around jars by size. "See what I mean?" Sakura asked with a grin, her hands found her hips. "We'll do a Harry Potter movie marathon. It will be great."

"Will you stay awake long enough to make it through a movie?" The woman asked with a raised brow.

Sakura blew a raspberry. "Remains to be seen."

"Thanks again, Sakura," Amaya turned to face her son. "Let's go, Hiro. Sakura needs her sleep."

"Bye, Sakura," the boy waved over his shoulder. He was already at the door.

"Bye Kiddo. Bye Amaya," she waved at the pair, smiling in thanks when Amaya engaged the lock on her way out before softly closing the door. The pinkette sighed, she glanced over her shoulder at the picture in the frame. The smiling face that never changed. "Goodnight," she murmured, walking to the far back wall to pull open a door that led to a stairwell. Her keys were in her hand again in preparation for the locked door that separated her and her abode.

He was holding up a wall, the exterior wall of the coffee shop, moving a cigarette between his fingers with a distant look on his face. He was tucked away from most eyes. Extra effort needed to be afforded in order to spot him. She secured her grip around the disposable cup holder tray in her hands before she pushed open the door. He did not react. He was far enough away from the entrance.

Sakura clicked her heels together as if to give herself the push she was missing, she made a left from the door and did not stop until she was nearly an arm's reach from him. He turned his head to face her. She saw his blue eyes widen a fraction for just a fleeting moment. The recognition caused her heart to stammer in her chest so loudly that perhaps he could hear it in his ears. Before he could open his mouth or she could lose her nerve, she pulled a cup from the tray.

"Coffee with milk instead of half-and-half and with half a packet of sugar," she extended the offering with a smile. Her green eyes danced around his face, unable to look him in the eye for more than a couple of seconds at a time. Her cheeks were flushed but she could not blame it on the cold, nippy air. The blond blinked at her, stupefied.

Okay then.

She waited with her heart in her throat. It had managed to migrate there and yet not a single word was uttered by the blond-haired man in a dark suit.

This was a bad idea. Too bold. I was too bold.

Ino, with her supermodel good looks, nice clothes, impeccable makeup, and loud personality, could get away with things that mere mortals such as herself could not. Sakura cursed herself to hell and back forever listening to the loud-mouth blonde's advice. It was on par with asking an Olympic track and field gold medalist for advice on how to run. It was laughable.

Just put yourself out there. She had said. Smile and be approachable. She coached. Everything will fall into place. And if you get tired of waiting just make the first move. Guys love that.

I'm an idiot.

"What's the occasion?"

She blinked in surprise. Her eyes went from the fingers gripping the top of the lid - fingers that did not belong to her, she checked - to the arm and the face they were attached to.

"Sorry," she mumbled, letting go of the cup so that he could claim it in earnest.

His voice is as pretty as the rest of him.

Deep. Smooth. And carried with calm. It was the first time she had heard him speak. Ever. And very quickly she decided that she liked hearing it. She cleared her throat at the expectant look on his face.

"Sorry?" He spoke again.

"Hm?" She asked every bit as carelessly as she felt. "Oh!" She shook her head. "No, well yes. It's an apology for my friend kind of blindsiding you yesterday." Sakura laughed. High-pitched and nervous. She cringed inwardly but found herself unable to stop. It was like she was watching herself crash and burn. Unable to do anything but stand there watching it all fall apart.

"Thank you," he said with a smile. It was not unkind. "Where is your friend?"

Sakura almost deflated at the question. "She had an early meeting today," she held up the cup holder to reveal two coffees left behind.

"No cheese danishes?" He asked the right side of his mouth to rise higher than his left.

"Right here," Sakura shook the brown paper bag that already had grease stains on it which was held in her only other hand. "Where is your friend?" She asked lamely all the while wondering what was wrong with her. She knew how to hold a conversation. Usually. She followed the path of his eyes. The journey was not far. Over her shoulder, she saw a tuft of bright red hair in a car that was parked across the street near a meter. His hair was just about all she saw. His face was covered by something dark - a hat if she had to wager a guess - as he lounged with the seat leaning back. "I see," she turned back to him. She noticed that the cigarette was back perched behind his ear.

"I should be the one," the blond said almost cryptically.

"What?" She tilted her head up slightly to get a better angle to read his face.

"I should be the one giving you coffee as a thank you for this," he explained, holding up his left hand - an arm that was tucked away from her vantage. In his hand was a familiar red umbrella. The one with pink cherry blossom flowers littered about. "It really saved me yesterday."

"Oh, I'm glad it helped," she laughed and thankfully this time it was at an appropriate volume and length. "Thank you." The umbrella exchanged hands, not all that different from the way the coffee had. She smiled. He smiled. Both took turns seeming to look away in a game of tag. She felt her face start to heat up even more despite only wearing two thin layers: just her scrubs and her medical coat. A coat she had to wear to this shop - not because she was obnoxious - as it was the only way customers did not grumble and complain when first responders got to cut the line, even if there was ample signage everywhere stating the shop policy. "Um," she could hear the tick, tick, tick of her wristwatch. "I should go," the reluctance of her tone was almost palpable. She was glad Ino was not here to witness it. She would never hear the end of it. "See you tomorrow." She bowed - out of nowhere. "Okay. Bye!" She waved at him with her umbrella, unable to help her spasmodic tendencies, before she practically fled from the area as if she had just committed a crime. Because it felt like she had violated some cardinal rule or something.

He'll call. Or text. He'll reach out.

She consoled herself, daring not to look back. Even if she had placed a block between her and the shop. She had not slowed down her frantic pace. He would notice the number of the cup. She was sure of it. Or he seemed like a nice enough guy to at least scratch her number out with his keys or a sharpie so that it was not left in a landfill somewhere when he inevitably threw out the cup and along with it, her dignity.

"Be confident," Sakura muttered to herself like one of the crazy people she avoided walking too close to at night. "The laws of attraction. A bird in hand. Something goose for the gander." She hung her head. "Why am I such a head case?" She asked herself as she bit back a groan.

"Hey Sakura," her coworker greeted her.

"Rin," Sakura smiled at the medical intern who rushed by to meet an ambulance that was parked in the bay. Sakura had made it to the double doors of the ER. She let out a gasp. "His name!" She hissed. She had forgotten to ask him his name. "I'm such an idiot."

She really ought to take Ino up on her offer to examine her head because she just proved to herself that there was not enough money in the world - not to mention time - to get her right.

Chapter Text

He stood unmoving as the amber liquid was poured from the crystal container into a smaller glass with similar etchings. The sound floated to his ears before the image obscured by smoke came in front of his eyes. He inhaled as deeply as he could while maintaining the facade of subtlety In here - within these four walls - any display beyond the bare minimum would not be absolved.

It was dimly lit; just on the cusp of dark. The two large windows were covered with thick velvet curtains. Dark wooden paneling that blended into the flooring. The symbol of allegiance - of the family - was stitched, carved, pressed, and embossed on every fabric and surface. Only the air seemed to be free of the branding but he supposed the smoke and the solemnity was as close enough. The scratching across the papers stopped just as he had finished his report for the month. The official scribe waited with his hand perched, pen hovering over the ledger to immortalize spoken into written.

"That is all," Minato concluded. He met the eyes of his leader through the cloud of slate gray.

The man leaned back in the upholstered leather chair. He steepled his fingers, tapping them together. His elbows dug into the plush armrests that squealed weakly.

"Thank you, Minato." The use of familiarity broke the tempered seal.

"Of course, Uncle," he dipped his head slowly; low. He walked backward several steps, only presenting his back to the desk when it was deemed acceptable. The handle was warm against his palm when he turned it. He did not allow the door - carved with distinctive designs on each of the six panels - to make a sound as it once again latched, leaving him on the other side.

The carpet was emerald - the color of pine needles - under his black loafers that he had wiped the bottoms of on the wiry textured mat laid flat across the entry. He nodded without seeing the faces of the guards who stood with their hands clasped at their fronts and heads slightly bowed; fingers twitching around their various tools of choice. Each one spoke almost to their individual style. One adorned with red waves stood out amongst the heads of raven.

Sasori fell in step with him just as the heavy wooden doors were open. The lazy sunlight was upon their faces, not bothered enough to warm them from what had been a sharp chill contained within the interior of the pagoda. A holdover from the feudal era. A subtle show of wealth and an even bigger display of strength. The central hub was impossible to miss. Even the tall concrete walls that surrounded the estate could not compete with the balconies on the fourth floor and above. The white paper lanterns with prayers and blessings written in thick, stark, black ink sang farewell as the wind moved through them. A chorus of a hollow sound. Every detail was more crisp and committed to memory, from the koi ponds that surrounded the pagoda, to the stone bridge that arched almost in a perfect half circle. Even the stone lanterns that adorned the ends of that bridge. The mature ginkgos whose bright yellow leaves had been underfoot not even a week ago, had covered everything in a golden blanket. The vibrant, showy reds and oranges of the maples native to only Konoha were outnumbered but they had put in a valiant effort and the contrast had been striking. The black pines were single-handedly keeping the complex from being left a mess of brown, gray, and gloom with their constant, reliably hardy green needles. Life, the pines were the gatekeepers of life at the complex for everything that was eye-level and above.

The plum yew had the responsibility to maintain color - with their yellow-tipped green leaves - underneath and around the trees that were now left barren - estranged from their leaves. The bamboo towers that grew on the inside along the walls that contained the property - at the perimeter - were perhaps his favorite. If he stood still long enough and the wind moved through the leaves just right it was as if he were standing at the shores of a beach - if his eyes were closed. It was restorative. And more than a little sad. He had lost hours playing in a bamboo forest that was no more, coaxing the laziest person on the planet to chase him. He never did just as Minato pretended to never notice in his pursuit to squeeze as much enjoyment he could from the moments that were fleeting. He understood that even then - somewhere between two and three decades ago.

The camellias bright and white were too just a fragment of his memories. They were the boy's - the one who was born here - mother's favorite flower. She had planted so many trees - over six feet tall in some cases but they might as well have been a hundred feet tall at that age, everything was massive for the little blond boy - at the guidance and advice of the best florist-botanist Konoha had to offer. She loved them like a third son, after her first and only born, and the son that ended up under her roof and care because he lost his. He had never seen camellias produce as many flowers or for as long as any of hers. But maybe that was just his fondness murking up truth with fantasy. Each tree had been either uprooted and rehomed or died where it stood when poison was poured directly into its roots.

Grief was a strange thing. It was unpredictable. It turned who was familiar and believed to be known into a stranger. Even the most logical, even-keeled, and grounded to become unsteady on their feet. Sporadic. Errant. Emotional.

"Is it done?" Minato asked the man who had been silent enough to allow him to ruminate deep and long where the edges of what had been bled into what was. He slid a hand over his blazer jacket to undo the twin buttons.

"I took care of it, Blondie," he let out a sound of annoyance at Minato's expression, the one that strongly encouraged him to elaborate. "It went like the last time and the time before that. So don't you worry your pretty little head about getting your hands dirty," the man cleaned under his nails as if to say something. But Minato knew better.

"Good," he said decisively and in finality. One less thing was on his plate now so one less thing that lingered in the back of his mind. The head liked patterns and consistency. He was not one for flash-in-the-pan brilliance. The more Minato delegated now, the easier things would be for everyone. The easier it would be to swallow for the ones that were blindsided.

Asking for forgiveness is a lot easier when it's backed by zeros.

A lot of them.

"Keep up the good work," Minato said without thinking. Predominate cycles were being spent thinking a month, two months, and even six months out from now.

Sasori blinked impassively at him, making Minato come close to regret opening his mouth. "How did your thing go?"

"Like it always goes," he tugged at his hair. His fingers moved to the cigarette tucked behind an ear.

"Like I would know," Sasori scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You took a while," he picked a thread off his faded jean jacket with disinterest. "Were you yapping away with the nephew?"

"He's out," Minato said with a sidelong glance, pausing momentarily. "Do we need to stop for food?"

"I'm fine," Sasori said without snapping because that would only prove what Minato alluded to being the truth. And he could not have that. He blotted at his forehead with his fingertips with no real hurry. "What did Boss Man say when you gave your future projections?"

Minato's silence was telling enough. Sasori's lips tugged into a smirk. He pulled a pointy instrument from his pocket. The tip had a purple gleam under certain midday light angles.

"You didn't tell him," Sasori stated with a smug curled lip what the truth was. "Is your plan to breadcrumb him until he dies? Or you do?"

The blond's teeth pressed up together hard enough to form a tick in his jaw. He forced himself to unclench it. He spoke with calm. "I have a plan. Everything has its time."

"Where have I heard that before?" The redhead asked with slightly more aggression than passiveness.

"Patience pays off. Trust the process," Minato reminded him with a tiredness born from the repetitive nature of these conversations that seemed to have more back than forth. The process was what got him here to where he was standing today, where Sasori ultimately wanted to be.

One day.

"Right," the man in question concluded with a lack of conviction. He brought the senbon to his mouth, sucking at the substance at the end. His boots crunched in the gravel. He pulled the passenger side door, impatiently - ignoring the look being directed at him by the man on the other side.

Minato sighed but ultimately pressed the button on the handle twice to unlock all the doors, Sasori slinked into his seat before he could even get the door open. When he did, his eyes landed on the center console. He frowned; brows furrowed and chin tight.

"Where's the cup?" He stooped down to look his partner in the eyes.

Sasori blew out, irately, disrupting the ambient air in the car cabin. He tucked the senbon back in his pocket with some modicum of care so it would not prick him. "I know how you are about keeping company property clean," he informed with an attitude - as if he was chewing rocks to cut each of the words from them. He jerked his head to the right.

Minato's heart sank.

Just what I needed.

The blond sighed, longer and with more frustration than the ones that escaped him earlier today. He straightened his spine before shrugging out of his coat. He placed the jacket across the back of the driver's leather seat. Sasori watched him with bored eyes, his head propped up against a curled fist that rested on an elbow on the car door. He had the perfect vantage to both brood and judge. The least self-destructive of his hobbies.

Minato undid his left cuff first, rolling the white silk up to reveal a sleeve married with ink. Black. He stopped just as the crook of his arm. The tattoos continued. He repeated the process for his right arm, it too had no sizable block of skin visible once the stark line of skin a centimeter under the ball bone of his wrist began. The barrier between what was visible and presented, and what was hidden away under layers of tailored art.

The ugly truth.

"Just leave it," Sasori grumbled, pressing his fingertips to his closed eyelids in an attempt to ease what was already building for it to even come to his notice. "We both know that you have the number memorized. We're wasting time," he scoffed in indignation at just how much he believed Minato to be doing: too much.

Minato closed the car door. He walked around the hood of the car and made his way to the green dumpster hidden behind a brick wall and some ivy.

So much for not getting my hands dirty.

That day was still in the distant future; it was not today. He lifted the black plastic cover - breathing through his mouth to keep from gagging - and began to search; expression grim.

Her phone was in her cubby. Safely tucked away two stories above the emergency room, where she currently was. Stitching skin back together. It was by design. If there was an emergency - a personal emergency - the main landline could be used to get a hold of her. And of course, there were her pagers. Usually, she did not go to such extremes to lock her phone away exactly thirty steps above her. Because usually, she was disciplined enough to not check her phone. Usually. Because usually, she did not give out her number to attractive strangers - she never had to, between her well-meaning mother and out-of-her-mind best friend. Thus, usually, she could be trusted to be an adult and do her job while one hundred percent focused.

Usually.

But today was far from usual. An hour into giving him her number and clocking in for the day, she had checked her phone no less than thirty-eight times. And she was not subtle about it either. It was so bad that the first-year residents - hell even the interns - asked if she was waiting for a package or something. Because what else could it be? The hospital was lousy with gossip. Everyone and their grandmother knew about her and her stance - that she was not even loud about voicing but after enough attractive paramedics or surgeons were turned down…people put two and two together because everyone was just so Goddamn nosey.

The rumors that she was hopelessly in love with Ino were amusing enough on a good day, which this was far from. Today Sakura was in no mood for any of it. Especially not hot-shot attendings and residents who approached her asking if she would put in a good word for them with Ino. Her usual approach of offering them a noncommittal "I'll see what I can do," was not within her realm of patience. Not today. Because today, she was too busy trying not to think about how she most definitely embarrassed herself in front of the prettiest blue eyes she had ever seen. And she was not even that into them! Or so she had thought - before her descent into madness. She could not be trusted.

So, it was during the second hour that she made the trek upstairs and locked away her phone - she even went as far as turning it off so that her fancy watch would not receive calls or messages. She learned today that even when that was the case, her damn watch still did because she was connected to the Wi-Fi. So she did the only reasonable thing, she disconnected from the internet.

Completely.

Because she could not be trusted not to jump or react to every notification even when it was simply an email from a meal prep or food delivery service, or a text from her wireless carrier encouraging her to upgrade her phone. She was a certifiable, embarrassing mess. Because it was officially six whole hours since she gave the man her number and there was not one text, or phone call thus zero signs of interest.

He was probably staring at Ino…this whole time.

Even her internal voice sounded bitter, there was no spinning this in a positive light.

Unless you count having definitive proof why never to try this again.

Because in all honesty, how long did it take to send one measly text? Honestly.

Sakura peeled off her gloves with more force than necessary on account of the tiny hole that was not there prior.

"You're all set. Come back in a few weeks to get them removed. Keep them dry and clean. And make sure to make an appointment," she rattled off in a detached and professional tone - clinical voice as she typed into the tablet in her now bare hands. Sakura nodded her head at the nurse who was assisting to take over to start the discharge process. She tucked the device into her arm to pin it against her ribcage, she relished in the heat it radiated. Keeping her forward motion, Sakura pulled the blue curtain away and stepped onto the ER floor. She moved to the circular counter. She set the tablet on the counter to reread the notes she had abbreviated and fixed the number of typos she had made.

"You're needed in room 1-B next, Doctor," a beautiful woman with curly black hair and bright red eyes said as she dropped some files from her computer to Sakura's screen.

"Thank you, Kurenai," Sakura smiled with a curt nod of confirmation of the instruction. "I'm going to miss you so much," she pouted at the charge nurse - her favorite by far.

"I'll be back before you know it," she rubbed the top of her swollen belly - the one that was stubbornly trying to not be contained in her purple scrubs.

She's glowing, she's so happy.

"Got to love our materiality policy," Sakura tutted and Kurenai made a sound of resigned agreement. She turned on her heel and moved to the room as per instructions. She pointedly ignored the woman who had appeared in the hall, not all that different from a troll lying in wait. Her heels clicked. Echoing. Resounding; nails being struck into a hollow coffin.

"Anything?" Ino asked her, a tablet of her own was held in her hands.

"I'm busy," Sakura breathed churlishly, she immediately slipped into a room - not 1-B because she needed to get away before she wrung Ino's perfect neck- thankfully it was empty. She cursed herself for having a loose mouth and immediately spilling her guts to Ino the second she handed over the coffee - because she had eaten both pastries before even making it halfway back to the hospital in her need for comfort only carbs could bring her. She waited out the blonde who from all accounts was down in the ER for legitimate purposes because she did not barge in after her demanding that Sakura explain herself.

She breathed.

"God, I'm such a loser," she covered her face with the back of the far from sanitary tablet and groaned. She counted to six before she squared her shoulders and stepped into the hall - pushing the thoughts of troublesome blonds from her mind.

Unsuccessfully.

He stared at the menu, reading it for the third time - after the initial time, standing off to the side so it could not be mistaken that he was standing in line. The very line that formed and cleared on two separate occasions, all the while he stood there frozen facing the daunting task he thought he had been prepared for.

Why are there so many choices?

When did tea become so popular? What happened to just the basics: black, gray, and green? What more was needed?

The answer seemed to be a lot more as he scanned the tea section of the three-paneled menu that hung from the ceiling on golden chains. The tea menu was right in the middle and it took up the entirety of the card. The gold letters popped against the dark green background. It seemed to fight their jungle theme. Everything was either a shade of green, gold, or vibrant.

I shouldn't even be here.

And yet here he was, steeped in indecision. Brewing in the prospects of all the options.

He scratched the back of his head. He had narrowed it down some. It was cold outside so the tea should be hot. It was late so it was best to go with decaffeinated. The size would be medium because it was between the two extremes - it seemed like the safe option. He narrowed his eyes. The loopy gold font was either getting hard to read or his eyes were starting to dry out.

Flower tea?

His frown grew more severe. It was pink. That was a definite plus, he thought. But then the thought that it was more hype than actual substance crossed his mind and that caused him to fall short of walking to the register and placing his order. He sighed, getting close to conceding to himself what had been the case from the moment he stepped into the shop: he was defeated.

He lowered his cobalt eyes from the menu to find a pair of yellow ones that were watching him with amusement. She was not even shy about it as she rested her cheek against her curled fist that was propped on the counter she was leaning over. Her short gray hair was tucked into the green berets that were part of the uniform - complete with a dark green apron with gold trim and a lighter green vertically striped shirt.

"Hi," he began lamely, returning her greeting that she had said over twenty minutes ago that he had politely asked for more time in return.

"Hi again," she answered, scrunching her nose. "Ready for help?"

If he had any leverage - or position of authority - he would have used it now but he did not so Minato stalked over to the counter, stopping a yard short from her smug face.

"Yes, please."

The barista smirked, making a show of straightening her posture to her full height. A whole five-foot something of it. "So what are we thinking?" She asked him, blinking slowly.

"Tea," Minato simply answered.

She raised a black brow. "You don't say," she brushed imaginary dust from the counter.

Minato, unbeknownst to him as to why, glanced over his shoulder - both of them. Perhaps to rely on anyone - someone - else reacting to what they just heard. But he was not sure himself that he had heard right. But there was no one. So he turned back with confusion on his face.

She waited with her hands folded on top of each other, boring her eyes into his.

"I," he refrained from tugging at his collar. It was hotter than he remembered it being. "Need something calming but not something that will induce sleep, but also not something that will push away sleep either. Something warm and with sugar. Something light?"

The girl listened intently which was more than he had come to expect from the younger generation. Her yellow eyes crinkled with knowing. "I have just the thing," she began to punch things into the register. "That will be seven fifty ryo."

Did the president hand-pick the leaves for the tea?

Minato cleared his throat. He held up two fingers on one hand. "Make that two."

The girl smiled. "That will be twenty-five ryo."

Now it was his turn to raise a brow. His hand halted on the way to his wallet inside of his back pocket.

"I added a tip. It's my gap year, I'm saving up for college," she explained shamelessly - without so much as a blink.

Minato sighed. He opened the black leather and went for the largest pocket. He pulled out the bills - three tens - and handed them to her.

The girl beamed. "Your order will be right out. Thank you and come again soon!" She sang with so much jovialness that he could not even front to be annoyed. "I work every night this week," she whispered before winking.

He closed his wallet but not before his hands smoothed down the carefully cut scrap of paper lined with plastic that had a string of numbers written across it in neat handwriting. He moved to wait under the green sign that said "Pick Up" in gold cursive letters to weigh what was more surprising that Tani had a place where people would spend so much on so little - maybe the Professor was onto something with a business with profit margins this high - or that he got played for the sucker he felt like.

This tea better be calming.

Because he needed a little bit of a top-off.

There was a prolonged screech as metal skidded on metal. The car lurched, jostling her fully awake. Sakura blinked, rubbing her eyes. She saw the stop being displayed over the screen right where the doors parted.

Two more stops to go.

She stretched her arms over her head as a small yawn slipped past her lips. She focused on listening.

She walked up the stairs. They creaked with each step she took. Her heart was stammering in her ears. Like thunder. She held the plastic weapon in her hand, clutching it to her chest. Everything trembled as she unlatched the safety. It was impossibly loud.

The female voice narrated the words of the book in her right ear through her headphone.

I need to rewind it. I missed the build-up.

She pinched the space between her brows; the bridge of her nose. Sakura pulled her phone from her pocket. She went back seven minutes - about the time she had dozed off. She peered over her shoulder at the window behind her. Just flashes of depressing yellow light as the car whizzed through the tunnel. It was so dark.

Julie poured over the police files. Her suspect had to be amongst the mugshots that were stern about the table. If there was one golden rule for serial killers it was this: once they got a taste of killing, they could not resist.

The audiobook resumed in the same even cadence of voice.

Maybe one of them could visit me next.

A wry smile pulled at her lips as she thought about it.

xXx

He stood on the platform, his right hand in his front pocket. His cobalt eyes kept referring to the ever-changing screen. The eleven forty-five train was still in Hayashi. There was still Mori before it reached Tani, the station he was currently at. He held a cupholder in his hands. Two disposable, single-use cups sat nestled into it. The strings of the tea bags hung from the side.

He brushed lint that was not there from his collared shirt. He adjusted the waistline of his pants just to give himself something to do other than stand around staring at a screen. Minato heard the vibration before he felt it. He reached across to his pocket to extract his phone. His blond brow furrowed together. He clicked the call button.

"Where are you?" Sasori's breathless question filled his ear.

"Out," he answered, confused. "What's wrong?"

"You need to get away. Go dark. Everything has gone to shit. You need to go!"

Minato stepped away from the platform, half-turning his back. The incoming train was too loud for Sasori's low voice to compete with. He moved his phone to his other ear, securing it in place with his shoulder. He used his free hand to plug his exposed ear.

"Slow down. One more time," Minato spoke calmly and clearly but not without urgency. "Hora."

"Get out! Now!" Sasori shouted. There was commotion in the background. He heard the man curse before the line went dead.

Minato pulled his phone from his ear. His eyes scanned. He counted at least ten people just on this side of the platform. He dropped his phone to the ground, crushing it with his heel before kicking it toward the tracks.

The doors pulled apart.

His head jerked up. He inhaled sharply. Cobalt eyes widened.

The tea fell from his hands, splattering on the floor just as a sharp pain had his hand moving to his opposite shoulder - more than enough to encompass the burns on his hand and side.

xXx

She opened the door. Everything was amplified. Every drop of sweat that left her brow and hit the floor sounded like a raging waterfall. If he - the suspect - was in the house, he could hear her. She knew it to be true. Even her breath howled like the wind in a blizzard. She moved with her training.

The car was slowing down. Sakura held onto the pole, it was keeping her more or less up. Each day seemed to be more tiring than the one before. She smiled automatically as an elderly woman made her way to the front. Sakura stepped backward to give her room. More and more bodies started to line up. A total of five. The doors parted.

Julie moved, her gun and flashlight crossed. She breathed shakily.

"Oh!" The woman exclaimed. She grabbed onto the grab bar and turned back to look at Sakura with surprise still on her features. "Careful dear, someone spilled something. What a mess," she shook her head and tutted, grumbling under her breath about what the world was coming to and why no one seemed to be raised right anymore.

Sakura thanked the woman for the heads-up as she waited for her to clear the path. It was not until both her feet were on the platform that she realized what that something was. Blood. The smell was unmistakable. She would never misidentify that smell.

It's fresh. There's a lot of it.

Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe as many as two.

Julie followed the trails of crimson.

Sakura stepped around it. The train had departed. Gone in a loud wizz and aggressive tailwind.

Someone could be hurt.

She ignored the faces that either stopped to stare at the blood or the blank ones that walked past completely oblivious to everything. She followed after the blood, holding her purse closer to her. The pepper spray in her right hand gave her some illusion of control.

Julie's breath caught when she arrived at the ensuite bathroom. The floor was wet. The tap was running over the edge of the claw-foot bathtub.

Sakura ran up the stairs that connected the platform to the hall before the tunnel where the light of day would shine through in a number of hours. The drops of blood were getting smaller and smaller. Just trickles for her to follow. She had to work harder to not disrupt the canvas they saturated. There was a large bloody handprint on the concrete wall inches from her head.

A man. The victim is a man.

The hand was much too big to belong to a woman or a child. She kept moving, pushing her shaky legs to remain rigid just long enough.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Sakura ducked, pressing herself against the wall. Flush. She closed her eyes. She shook slightly. The concrete was rough against her cheek. Her heartbeat vibrated off her ears so loudly that it nearly displaced the lone headphone she had forgotten was still in her ear. She peeled an eye open. She glanced around still from the safety of the wall. The narrow hallway was empty. Dirty but empty. She placed a hand over her thundering heart.

Get a grip, Haruno.

She admonished herself, disappointed. She breathed, controlled, and measured. In. Out. In. Out. In-

Julie let out a cry of pain as a bullet grazed her leg. Blood gushed forth-

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Sakura froze. The sound was too loud. Her whole body vibrated; from her teeth to her toes. She covered her head without the thought crossing her mind. Instinct. Pure instinct. It was bonafide.

Bang. Bang.

It was echoing. It had to be echoing. It was so loud like she was at an indoor shooting range and the stall next to her was unloading a shotgun. It was impossible for her to tell where it was coming from. It was all around her but she knew that was not the case.

Julie-

She pulled a headphone from her ear, tearing it away. Her hands shook - trembled - as she tried to pause the audio. She fumbled with the passcode. She nearly locked herself out for minutes. She punched the numbers with desperation. The line trilled. She held her shaky breath.

"Emergency services. What's your emergency?"

"I'm at the Tani subway station and I heard gunshots. Five of them," her voice fluctuated, held together by a thread - her stubbornness. "There's blood. I think someone's hurt."

"Ma'am, what station did you say you were at? And you heard gunshots? Do you see a gun?"

Sakura licked her lips, she was moving slowly in her crouch, clearing an inch of ground at a time. Her boots sounded. The strike of her heel was like a hammer.

"I heard it go off," she whispered, compensating for everything else about her that was too loud. Her eyes darted up to the camera. Her heart sank. The screen was broken. Shattered.

If I die, it won't be recorded. They could get away with it.

"Ma'am, ma'am, I need you to stay with me."

"Oh my God!" A shrill shriek had Sakura jumping out of her skin. She pressed up against the wall. Flat. Her breath hitched. She saw a woman running with her hands on her head. Tears streamed down her face. "They're shooting!" She cried out in terror, grabbing onto the metal railings with peeling yellow paint drilled into the concrete wall as she zigzagged. "Ah!" She cried out in surprise. She lurched forward, falling on her face - catching herself at the last moment.

"Ma'am!" Sakura fell onto her hands and knees. She crawled. She was at the woman's side instantly. Her eyes found blood on the woman's heel. Glass stuck out from her backless sandals. "From the cameras!" Her brain was working much too slowly. "You're okay," Sakura said over and over, not sure to whom. It did not matter. It was not like she could stop it anyway. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her brown and black plaid coat.

"Ma'am?" The operator asked her loudly, audio muffled by the layers of fabric and the chaos all around her. "Are you still there?"

"I'm going to die," the woman wailed.

"You're going to be fine," Sakura said with more calm than she felt. She pulled open her black bag. She pushed things around until she found bandages and hand sanitizer. She squirted some onto her palms and rubbed quickly. "I'm going to pull the glass out, okay?" She did not go back looking for gloves that she knew were in there. With her blunt nails, she pulled out the jagged pieces of glass.

Bang. Bang.

Sakura's shoulders jumped but she worked to keep her hands as steady as possible.

"God!" The woman covered her face with her arms, her eyes were wide as she trembled uncontrollably. "I have kids!"

"And you'll see them," Sakura said through clenched teeth. "I need you to stay calm. Please," she begged. Her hands shook as she pulled the last of the glass. She ran her fingers along the broken skin relying on going by feel. "I think that's the last of it. Now this will sting," she let out a warning.

"W-what?" The woman let out a pained yelp as the alcohol hit her wound.

"Shh," Sakura shushed her as she quickly bandaged the injury. There was frantic running of feet. Heavy. Sakura raised her eyes to find a middle-aged man with glasses and salt-and-pepper hair. "Sir!" She moved to grab him, lurching forward as if she was inebriated - tweaking out of her mind. "I need you to help," she glanced back at the sobbing mess on the floor. "I need you to help get her out," her eyes darted over his shoulder. "You too!" She pointed to a high schooler in a skull cap. "Now!" She shouted.

The man and teen jumped, they each grabbed an arm and hauled the woman up, half dragging her uncooperating frame. Sakura wiped her hands on her brown pants. Smearing them with red. Clammy and covered in sticky, warm blood.

"Remain calm," she waved in more people past her. Her lips trembled. She reached inside her pockets, her fingers found the dog tags. She traced the engraving over and over with her shaking fingertip.

Give me strength, Sakuto. Give me strength to be brave like you.

Sakura grabbed her bag and ran in the direction she had last heard the gunshots. She clutched the railing to keep her from flinging herself down the flight of stairs. She did not even notice that the call had disconnected somewhere along the way.

xXx

Shit. Shit. Shit.

It was not helpful - his internal monologue - but the pain was starting to become too much. It was impacting his ability to think clearly. Minato panted; his head was tilted back. The unforgiving galvanized steel provided no comfort in what could very well be his last moments. He was pinned in place. If anyone came over the stairwell, the stairs he could see, it would be over for him.

"Shit," he muttered in defeat, his hand continuing to apply pressure to his left shoulder. He flinched as yet another bullet sailed through the plastic and steel. He watched it wizz by and lodge itself into a pillar. It was the world's most morbid version of a round of Battleship. And he was running out of decoys.

He let out a grunt of frustration, his eyes on his fingers trying to get them to respond. The pain had him clamping his teeth down on his tongue until he tasted blood in his mouth. He hissed. His eyes continued to move, scanning to find any way out. It was a clear path to the stairs. Assuming the man did not have backup that was en route, if he made it to the stairs he was home free. But there was very little coverage between where he was and the promised land. One more hole through him and he would bleed out - assuming the bullet did not kill him instantly.

Think. What did you miss?

Nothing. No. That was not true. The only thing he had missed was his target, as in the man shooting at him. But that was intentional. However, the man was not getting the hint and Minato was running out of time because it was leaving his body in scarlet rivulets.

He closed his eyes, turning his head away. A bullet speared through the flimsy resistance. Small shards of plastic shot out - shrapnel. His left ear rang. It was disorienting.

This might be it for me.

He felt more peace than conflict. His hand twitched, fingers unable to curl all the way. He was not without regret. He pushed all the air from his lungs. He blinked his eyes open, slowly. The sweat that had dripped down his brow stung in his eyes. Irritating them red. He stared at the gun at his side. He had bullets but no way to fire them. A sound had him raising his head. His ears perked. It echoed. Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack. Almost familiar somehow. His heart sank at an all too familiar flash of pink that could not be easily dismissed.

What is she doing?!

His eyes widened. He picked up the gun with his right hand, swollen and raw. A wounded cry of pain ripped through his throat, he unloaded the clip with numb fingers praying that she would not be stupid enough to continue her path.

xXx

Her body froze for a second before instincts took over. Instincts of the wrong kind because Sakura lowered onto her stomach. She began to crawl on her elbows like she was back in her childhood home's small backyard with lush green grass - her father's pride and joy - trying to keep up with a much longer frame who was army-crawling away from her, throwing playful taunts over his shoulder - smiling wide and carefree.

But she was not seven years old and this was most certainly not her backyard. Sakura crouched behind a trash can waiting out the gunfire. She covered her ears. The air smelled of gunpowder and blood. She nearly gagged. Her ears rang. Her heart was beating in a painful rhythm.

One. Two. Three. Four.

She counted off the shots, her eyes squeezed shut and her teeth clenched with each and every round fired. Her breath was up and down, completely thrown off. The silence was somehow louder than even the barrage of fire.

Keep moving. Keep moving, Haruno.

Left. Right. Left.

She dragged herself forward, pulling her bag against the ground, squinting trying to see through the smoke. A vending machine was thrown on its side. Riddled with holes - bullet holes. Bullets lodged into the concrete pillars behind her.

That will make ballistics's job really easy.

Her head raced. She crawled around the blood, her leather bag dragging against the grimy tile. Hunched over, she sat back on her heels, opening her bag. She found the roll of bandages, open from when she used it last and had hastily shoved it back into the bag. She tried to find the end of it. She could barely see past her hand but that did not stop her from shakily feeling around the silk. Her fingers landed in something wet and warm.

Her heart all but stopped when she felt something curl around her wrist - encircling it.

xXx

His eyes were as cold as ice as he gazed upon her with pure, unadulterated fury. "What are you doing?" He hissed out the question in a voice he did not recognize. "Answer me!" He snapped, agitated by her silence.

"C-coffee man?" She blinked at him, mouth open as she stuttered. She was suspended in her disbelief.

She's an idiot.

Minato groaned as he tried to sit up. He chanced a glance to look over his shoulder in the direction where the bullets had come from.

Did I hit him?

Hands pulling at his frayed shirt did the same to his attention. She was prodding the injury.

"Sakura," he called out her name but her movements did not halt. "What are you doing?" He repeated just as tersely as the first time he asked the question.

"You're hurt," she did not look him in the eye. Perhaps she was not as foolish as he believed her to be. His gaze would have eviscerated her. "I can help," she claimed in a voice that remained together and if he had the capacity for anything else, he would have been impressed by that fact.

Not that he would want to encourage her stupidity.

I need to give her cover.

Adrenaline coursed through him. His fight and flight was retriggered. Freeze and fawn were never an option before much less now. He narrowed his eyes, thinking. His priority had shifted but it was clear. Painfully clear.

"You need to leave," he said through clenched teeth, he swiped at the sweat from his brow with his forearm.

"You'll die if I leave," she threw back in his face. Her emerald eyes were hard. Stubborn and promising to be unmoving. "I need to call an ambulance." Her hands were going toward her pockets presumably to reach for her phone.

He grabbed her wrist with his battered hand, the pain was not registered, stamping her creamy skin with red. "Stop," he commanded.

She opened her mouth. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. Minato did not think. He pushed her to the ground - hard - and covered her entirely with his person.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

She shook like a leaf under him. Small. Frail. Terrified.

The smoke made it hard to breathe. "Are you okay?" He asked her, only able to spare her a quick glance.

"Fine," she said with a shaky voice. Her eyes were wide. "You're a criminal," she announced.

He pushed air out of his nose audibly. A smirk tugged at his lips in added absurdity to it all. A part of him did not believe this was actually happening - that she was really here.

Did I die and go to purgatory?

He did not dwell on the prospect for too long.

"Surprise," he said distractedly. Only people with affiliations to two things had guns in Konoha: law enforcement or criminals. It was nearly impossible for citizens to get weapons like this. The fact that he did not have a badge or backup and an aversion to calling an ambulance only pushed the needle further in that direction.

"Shit," his hand shook. Uncooperative.

"Your hand," she frowned at the swollen mangled mess. "You can't shoot."

"I know," Minato loaded the magazine with difficulty - biting back dark curses.

I'm sorry.

"You need to." He held the gun with the handle angled toward her, flat on his palm. His eyes were hard. They left no room for argument. "The safety is off," he said in an almost gentle voice. "That means-"

"I've fired a gun before," she snapped at him, interrupting. "And I'm not doing it again." She shook her head firmly. "No. No way," she convinced herself - solidifying her convictions.

He did not let his surprise bleed into his expression. "Sakura," an unsavory taste filled his mouth when saying her name out loud in front of her for the first few times was in a situation such as this. "We don't have time. He will kill us. And he won't lose sleep over it."

He will kill you!

How was she failing to gauge the seriousness of the matter?

He pulled her wrist with a rough tug. "Get down!" He shouted.

Sakura yelped as two more rounds sliced through the vending machine. More liquid gushed on the floor wetting their clothes. "Fine! Fine!" She screamed. She took the gun, peeling herself off his chest. Her hair and forehead were covered in blood - painted over her sweat.

Sakura whimpered as her hands curled around the plastic gun. Hand over hand. Her wrists were stiff. Her grip was firm.

"Good," Minato pressed his uninjured shoulder against her back. "Keep your head low. Do you see him?"

She nodded. "Yes," her gaze was locked on the raven-haired man hiding behind a pillar. "Oh my God."

"You're doing great. Don't overthink," he encouraged every bit as much as he coached. "He's reloading," Minato spoke with calm and control. "We have time before he comes out from behind there and that's when you shoot. Remember to breathe."

Keep your eyes open, Rara!

A voice she had forgotten the pitch and tone of rang in her ears. He was chuckling. Like he always did. Like she still remembered from the first time she held a gun. She had been twelve. She thought she was so grown up. She had wanted him to be proud of her. Would he be proud of her now, she wondered.

"Good." Minato was right there to guide her. "Just like that." His voice was soft behind her ears. Breath hot.

Sakura held hers. She saw black peeking out from the pillar. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. Teeth pressed tight.

Bang.

Minato was pulling her down again so fast that all she could do was accept it. "You need to keep your eyes open!" He corrected, with faltering confidence in her claims and abilities.

"I can't," Sakura started to shake. "I can't."

You have no choice.

Minato pressed his hand to his shoulder. More blood gushed out. "You can, Sakura. You have to. He's seen your face."

"What?" She stared at him utterly lost.

"He's seen your face, Sakura," Minato said solemnly, his restless eyes - they never stopped scanning for more than a couple of seconds at a time - urged her to connect the dots that his voice had been unable to.

"Oh my God," her face - the one in question - lost color. She gulped.

"You can do it. I believe in you." Minato turned her around by the shoulders, wincing in pain, giving her next to no time to dwell on anything. "You have to."

It would go a long way if you remembered to keep your eyes open.

She pointed the barrel of the gun at the man. The man who had seen her. She lined it up. She blinked, exhaling. She pulled the trigger. Once. Then again.

Bang. Bang.

A cry joined the sound of bullets leaving the chamber.

"You got his hand!" Minato exclaimed in surprise, eyes wide from watching the spark on the side of the gun when the bullet shot out of the chamber. "Nice shot," he could not help but add.

Sakura dropped the gun unceremoniously, with her hands held up by her ears. Minato caught it before it could clatter to the ground and go off again. Friendly fire was going to be nothing but a concept tonight. He shoved it into his jacket pocket. "Come on," he got up partially to his feet, pulling her with him.

Backs arched and moving in zig-zags, they ran. Sakura followed after him, too overwhelmed to think about anything; just having enough wits about her to bring her bag with her. She held on for dear life. The leather handles were the only thing to complain verbally about her grip strength.

xXx

She dug in her heels just as he had ducked into an alleyway, sirens screamed in an angry blur of red and white. An ambulance. But her heart picked up all the same as if she were the one chasing behind the vehicle. Usually, she was running toward the ambulance - to greet it with determination. Usually, police sirens and squad cars only induced curiosity and not panic. Usually, she had no reason for it. Sakura threw her weight back, stretching the arms that connected them - held in place by her hand in his grip. Damaged but still strong. He looked back at her confused. Broad shoulders rose and fell with each heavy pant. His forehead glistened with sweat - the parts of it visible through the set of plastered hair. She shook her head. Decisively. The restraint slackened. Their arms fell almost in synchrony. His warmth lingered in a sticky coating around her hand.

"You're bleeding," she stated flatly without emotion, matter-of-fact, and straight to the point.

"That's not exactly a new development," he smiled lopsidedly at her, breathless.

Humor to deflect. To de-escalate. To keep me engaged.

Or to cope. She had seen it. The fear that flashed across his eyes was not all that removed from a caged wild animal. It was primal. Feral. No matter how good he was at hiding it behind easy smiles perfected from years of repetition. He could not mask the truth any more than he could change it.

"You're going to pass out," she pulled out her phone from her pocket before he could stop her. Sakura turned on the flashlight, holding the opposite end under her chin. She shoved him against the brick not caring if she was being gentle. That was not her priority.

He can only complain if he's alive.

"We can't be in the open for too long," he protested in words only. He slumped against the wall until he was seated with his knees bent. He was in no position to fight back in earnest. He was losing color. Fast. it would be alarming if she had the capacity left over for that.

We left a trail for him…or anyone to follow.

She knew that even if he was much too considerate to say as much. If they wanted to avoid being caught - tracked down - this was necessary and long overdue. She moved with sureness as if the dingy, dirty alley that smelled a little like wet carpet was the pristine, sterile environment of the inside of her ER. She breathed through her nose, pushing duality from her mind.

He's a patient, just like any other. You took an oath. So help him.

And she would. And that too with a singular focus.

He watched her lower the phone. His brain muddled as she shrugged out of her jacket, tossing the balled-up fabric almost carelessly at her feet and over her boots. It was not until her blouse - sheer black and tied with a bow around her neck- was halfway over her head that he registered what was happening. He blinked when she pressed it against his shoulder, displacing his hand for just a little while with a grip that was far stronger than what her deceptively small frame alluded to.

"Hold," she commanded. Her black camisole was tucked into her brown dress pants. The chill of the air caused her skin to erupt in bumps. He could see her breath in front of her. Her teeth nearly clattered.

He obeyed without a word. The flashlight almost blinded him to the point that he was forced to close his eyes. He could feel something being wrapped around his arm tightly. He followed the nonverbal cues she gave him - a tug on the arm meant to lean forward, and a hand pushing back meant he needed to lean back. He liked to believe he did not impede her progress all that much. When the red light was no longer dancing behind his eyelids he blinked his eyes open. It took time to adjust back to the lack of light that was barely discernible from the darkness of closed lids.

She was rummaging through her bag again, crouched close to the ground - seemingly indifferent to the cold that her body endured. Before he knew what was happening, something was being shoved over his head. Instinctively he lowered his neck. She was standing on her toes, breathing altered by the effort of reaching to the edge of her range, tucking his blond hair under a black beanie with a hurried hand. It was when she pulled out a maroon scarf from her bag like a magician that he started to chuckle - on the verge of deliriousness.

"Got any alcohol in there?" He asked with a smile. "It would help with the pain."

She shot him a less-than-impressed look. "Lean forward," she commanded yet again. He did as asked without thought. She draped the scarf around his shoulders, hiding the bandages. He noticed that her coat was around her again. She pulled up the hood. His blood on her forehead and hair - or what was left of it that had not dripped off with her sweat - was harder to see. "Let's go." She helped him to stabilize mostly on his own two feet again without the support of the wall. His legs shook. She was there. Minato walked in step with her, her arm around his torso propped him up.

The adrenaline was starting to wane fast. Each step hurt more than the previous. He closed his eyes and focused on his breath.

xXx

It took her two tries to get the key into the lock in her flustered haste. The number of cars had progressively slowed down until they stopped coming all within three blocks of the alleyway. Each time she had simply held him closer and kept moving. She had tried not to think how each sound - a cat, garbage being dragged through the streets by the wind, the cries of an oversensitive, cheap third-party car alarm - meant their demise. She had never been more grateful for both the lack of street lamps and the blatant lack of upkeep for the spare ones they had. The darkness shrouded them, preserving their lives. Sakura pushed through the door, breathing for what felt like the very first time after a long abstinence. Minato's head lolled limply against her shoulder. Neck boneless. They backed against the doorframe, closing the heavy door. She groped around behind her blindly to engage the lock. It clicked. She exhaled. More and more of her control she regained. Next, her hand reached out to find the light switch.

It flooded the room. She closed her eyes, hissing at the light like a cat. She blinked them open. She crankled the dial on the thermostat that was right next to the light switch. It was almost as cold as outside in the stagnant basement air. She moved as quickly as she could as her body adjusted. Her arms and back would hurt tomorrow.

Worse than when Ino convinced me to give CrossFit a chance.

She had not moved from her couch for three days after that workout which nearly worked out all of her life force from her bones. She did not believe herself to be a quitter but after one forty-five-minute class, she was more than happy to accept the new label and everything it brought her. Thigh gap and toned stomach be damned.

Should have stuck to it.

It would have made this easier. Surely. It was like she was dragging a tire attached to a rope over her shoulder. So maybe she was beginning to see the point of all of it. Not that she ever imagined she would be here and in this situation. Even hypothetical scenarios had their limits.

"You're heavy," she complained to no one in particular as she staggered, struggling to carry them both to the center of the room. He grunted in pain when she lowered him - as gently as she could (she did not throw him like a sack of potatoes, it was the best she could do) - into the leather chair. "Sorry," she said out of habit. Her messy bun was more of a mess than a construct. She did not bother to correct it now. It was out of the way and that was all that mattered now. She peeled off her jacket - drenched in blood - onto the floor, stepping over it to gather all the supplies. It took longer because of Hiro's reorganization. She had been too tired to fix it last night.

"Shit," Sakura muttered under her breath. She gathered the tools and placed them on the end table next to the chair, clearing everything else off of it hastily. Not caring what broke or got displaced on its way to the dark gray vinyl floors. The crashing sound caused him to stir. His unfocused eyes blinked in alarm. "You're safe," she said in a soothing voice while she held him in place with a firm hand pressed to his uninjured shoulder in stark juxtaposition. Any sudden movements could cause him to bleed out even faster. "You're okay," she bit the inside of her cheek.

I still don't know your name.

"I'll take care of you," she promised him with a confidence that one would be foolish to challenge. "Just rest." The blond must have been somewhat lucid because he nodded his head before closing his eyes to promptly pass out again. "You picked a good day to wear black," she commented as she cut open his shirt that had been white just this morning when she handed him his cup. She was too preoccupied to remember that particular fact. She lifted his head and shoulders from the chair as much as she could to peel back his suit jacket. The insides were a dark blue with white origami roses - Konan's signature - and dark green leaves.

Sakura never understood why the inside of men's clothing - specifically suits - was more interesting than the boring outsides that looked like they were all wearing the same thing. She scrunched her nose in a feeble attempt to hold in a sneeze. She inhaled backward sharply, feeling the snot down her throat. It was disgusting but he was passed out so it was as if it never happened.

She scrubbed her hands furiously - skin turning pink. She wiped them half dry on a sterile towel she ripped from a pack. She donned gloves in record time somehow managing to avoid ripping them. Sakura pulled the operating light closer to him, her shadow cast on his face. His body - his torso - was covered with tattoos. Both his pectoral muscles and his arms from what she could see. Only his abdomen and everything above his collarbones were free of ink.

Akatsuki.

"Shit," she cursed herself, questioning everything. "The bullet," she forced herself to focus on the task at hand and not obsess over the fact that she was helping a criminal. A criminal with a gun. A criminal that shot that gun. A gun that had her fingerprints all over it. A gun that was still in his jacket pocket, she realized with a start. Sakura moved to grab it with gloved hands. She put it in a drawer without thinking about it further. He was still bleeding.

"The bullet's still lodged in him." She needed to get it out. Sakura reached for the tweezers. She breathed through her nose, slowly.

xXx

Minato awoke to pain. He opened his eyes only to snap them closed. It was too bright. He tried to raise his hand to cover his face but everything hurt.

"Drink this," a voice - feminine and vaguely familiar - said. He felt his head being propped up and something pressed against his lips. He drank. The liquid burned. He coughed.

"Easy!" She said chastising.

He sipped instead of trying to gulp.

Vodka.

He remembered the taste. He felt warm. Or was it cold? Alcohol did not work that fast on him before. Minato fell back out of consciousness.

xXx

The lights were dimmer. She was hovering around his shoulder. He could see her eyes. They were focused. She was pulling and tugging on a thread. Thin. Black. It did not hurt as bad. Or maybe he had just gone numb. He felt warm. He felt sticky. Something cool was gliding over his skin. He closed his eyes. The darkness's call was too tempting to ignore.

xXx

His forehead was against something hard. Boney. But also soft. It smelled nice. Even if it was a little sticky. His thick, long blond lashes fluttered. He could only see creamy skin and thin black straps. He was warm. Something smelled good. Something other than the blood and the antiseptic. His chest felt restricted. Not in a bad way. Contained. Like a hug. He smiled. His eyes felt heavy. He closed them again.

xXx

His skin smelled faintly of alcohol from the wipes - she lost count after the fifth one - she had used to clean his torso, arm, and hands - not from the alcohol he had spilled down his chin. It left it clammy so she had gone back to run a warm towel over the area. His upper body was no longer sticky from the artificial sweetness but it did not take long for his body to displace enough sweat to form a sheen over him. She blotted at his brow with a damp cool towel.

His pants clung to him in what had to be discomfort but there was little she could do about that. There were no indications that he was injured beyond his hand and shoulder. The garment was not in the way of her triage and subsequent treatment. It was not justifiable medically. And then there was a completely different aspect - one she did not want to get into. She had no desire to find out what his reaction or first thought would be once he realized his pants were gone. So she left them covering his legs like loose skin.

Sakura adjusted the dark gray felt blanket around those very legs, draping it over some of his abdomen - as far as the fabric would go. He was shivering. He was breathing. She did not need to attach the heart rate reader to his finger to see that. The beeping would only drive what was left of her sanity over the edge. She stepped backward. One step. Two steps. Then three. Slowly.

Sakura yanked off her gloves. First the left and then the right. She moved until there was no space. The back of her shins hit something thin and hard. Cold. She sank into the chair, letting it catch her as she fell. Her body was suddenly uncooperative and untrustworthy. She watched his chest rise with intent focus. The bloodied gloves rested across her thighs. She did not even spare them a second thought - her motions were automatic. Sakura reached backward, pulling her hair out of the ponytail so that when she leaned her head back against the wall, the tie did not pose complications.

Complications.

They could not afford them now. She had been thorough. The bullet that was lodged in him now sat in a small plastic container with a screw-on lid. See-through as it was only slightly opaque. Her eyes darted for just a second from his rising chest to the cup at his bedside. He breathed. She listened. She returned her eyes to him and began to count his breaths. The very ones they had snatched back from the cold grip of death.

Too close for comfort.

xXx

His throat was dry. It was as if he had swallowed fistfuls of sand. Raw and agitated. There was light pooling on his face. Unnatural and bright. Heating it. It was adding to his discomfort. It felt like he had been kicked by a horse. He did not know why that came to mind as he had never been near enough to a horse to know what that felt like, but it did. And it felt accurate. His upper body was on fire. Everything throbbed. No. His shoulder did. His left shoulder specifically. All pain and heat were centralized there. Until it was too much to contain in the small area so it spread to everywhere else. He turned his head to the side, moaning. A vein danced in his neck. Visible and pulsing. He could feel it humming. Everything hurt. His dry, dry eyelids - there was crust developing in the corners - pulled apart. His vision swam. He kept blinking to reset the picture - to see more of it.

His still-hazy eyes wandered from where they had landed on a neat row of jars all with varying contents. Contents he forced himself to place. Tongue dispensers, cotton balls, cotton swabs, disinfectant wipes, and various other things that escaped his throbbing brain. Pressure built at his temples in a tell-tale sign of a migraine. He did not get them often but when he did, they could be debilitating.

I should sleep it off.

That was the only thing that worked but despite being exhausted, the pain all but guaranteed sleep would not come to rest on his pillow. So why bother? It would only add frustration on top of everything else. Everything that he was still in the process of determining as he became more and more reacquainted with the land of the consciousness.

Eyes swept from left to right before trailing up and up when nothing of interest was found at that level. First, he found the clock, it was twenty-seven minutes past three in the morning - he deduced both from the lack of natural light and because it was hard to believe that he would have slept fifteen hours straight. No, he felt too close to death - like a train ran through him - for that. A sickly sweet smell cut through the clinical-perfumed air. It was nauseating. Cobalt irises landed on a simple, brown wooden picture frame. Blond brows furrowed. Eyes narrowed slightly to bring the blurs to focus.

It was a picture of a man anywhere from mid-twenties to early-thirties. He had red hair. Straight and cut close to his head. With eyes that could be called teal as they were neither green nor blue, somewhere in between the two maybe. He was smiling with his whole face. He was happy. Proud even. He was wearing a uniform. Tan and green camouflage. Military. Minato blinked and squinted but he could not make out the stitched name across his left chest pocket. He did not know the man but something about the picture - the unmoving, still picture - made his stomach churn with unease.

Where am I?

His left ear - the one not pressed up against too warm leather - picked up on sound. He was in no condition to turn his head much less defend himself. He continued to lie mostly still, vision still blurry around the edges. Each breath was a challenge. He felt his orientation change. He went from being horizontal to mostly vertical with next to no warning. His head spun so it took him longer to place the green eyes staring at him. So long that his face did not change whatsoever.

"You're awake," she said neither pleased nor disappointed. Completely neutral in her statement of fact in response to his befuddled blinking.

She filled his line of sight. She was different from what his racing memories last recalled seeing her. She had a long cardigan on - beige and chunky - over her black camisole. Her hair had less blood in it and her forehead and face looked like they had been washed recently. Her hands were clean. There was no blood under her fingernails.

"How are you feeling?" She asked him. Her clean hands moved to inspect the bandages on his shoulder and chest. They were white and clean. He was without his shirt and his jacket. "Do you feel drunk?"

"N-no," he rasped. He licked his lips, they were chapped. He tried to move his hand to his throat but nothing was cooperating. Everything felt heavy. Like he was suspended in water. Or maybe even something denser like corn syrup. It would certainly explain the unpleasant stickiness.

She was gone but before he could think too long about it, she was back. She held a water bottle in her hands. She twisted the cap. He heard the seal break. "Here," she said almost gently. He felt his head being lifted - cradled by the back of her hand - so she could help him drink. He gulped the first sip.

"Slowly," she admonished his fit of coughing brought on by nearly choking. A sense of deja vu filled him but everything was so fast that he could not linger in it. She had pulled the water bottle back. Water dripped down his chin landing on the bandages in tiny drops. "Can I trust you to not almost kill yourself?" She asked after his lungs had been cleared of water and all the pain receptors in his upper body had been reawaken to remind him just how not-numb he was.

Ow.

He had to settle for thinking it because that was all he could manage. Her green eyes narrowed slightly in what he chose to read as concern and not impatience. Minato smiled sheepishly. It was small but he saw the hard glint to her eyes soften. A margin. But softened all the same. He controlled himself when she brought the water bottle to his lips. She tilted it slowly. He drank even slower. Within two minutes he had taken a handful of sips. His throat was no longer parched and his mouth tasted less of cotton. He felt more alive. And not in a bad way.

"Where am I?" He asked her, his hand resting on his stomach. It too was bandaged. The compression of the binds was starting to eek through the dulling stabs of struggle.

"My clinic," she said with a sigh - not looking too happy to be sharing this information with him. "Do you remember how you got here?" She was reaching for something that was just out of sight. He did not move his head to follow the path. Instead, he took the time to study her. She had not slept. Her eyes were bloodshot.

"I do," he cleared his throat. Something went wrong. Horribly wrong. "You saved my life," he said with palpable remorse.

And I endangered yours.

Hers and all those innocent people's lives as well.

"That remains to be seen," she countered humorlessly. Her fingers were at his wrist. He felt slight pressure after the prick of her nails on his skin. Her hands were warm and somehow he could feel the difference between his burning flesh and her pleasant heat. "You have a fever. You need antibiotics. But you need to eat before you can take them. And you need to be sober."

"I'm sober." If he could, he would have sighed. But he could not. It would hurt too much. "I don't think I can stomach anything right now." Even being able to craft words was beyond what he thought was possible. His pants were sticky. He placed the sweet scent. Soda. From the vending machine. He was wearing just about every flavor.

The tea.

"Hm," she was rustling through a drawer. He wondered if it was all so she did not have to look at him. The thought bothered him more than it should have given the circumstances. He heard plastic being rustled. "Open," she did not give him a chance to resist. Something was being shoved into his mouth, clacking against the tops and bottoms of his teeth. His tongue wrapped around it in an investigation. Artificial sweetness. "Start licking," the corner of her lips twitched upwards for a second but he blinked and it was gone before he could confirm. "You need to get your blood sugar up." She slapped the bag of glucose that hung from a medical rack and hook with a blank expression. The one that was attached to the back of his hand. The one he was just now noticing. The bag settled. His stomach turned. Minato did not stand a chance. He followed her orders dutifully. His fever migrated to the tips of his ears, turning them bright red; thankfully hidden away by his yellow mess of hair.

xXx

"You sure you'll be okay out here?" She asked him for the third time, her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth. She kept eyeing him up and down. She could not help it. He was standing in her living room, barefoot on her green rug. In slightly too-short light gray sweatpants that were bunched around the bottom of his calves, exposing the golden skin of his ankles. He had chosen to forgo a shirt after his quick "hose-down" as he described it. "Just to get the sticky off," he had said in what had to be a convincing tone because she caved in and granted him the right and access. A hose-down she had stood on the other side of the door waiting for the sound of someone falling - after giving him what had to be the medical equivalent of a field sobriety test, which deemed him not to be a hazard to himself he supposed. The point was that she did her due diligence to avoid the risk of collapse. And thankfully, collapse he did not.

"I'll be fine," he assured her again just as he had prior. He did not feel it all that much. Rather he did not feel it anymore, against his tissue, embedded in him. She had extracted the entirety of the bullet in one go - it had been clean. The only thing that seemed to go right. It did not shard. It had not grazed bone. That made matters not as complicated for her.

"It's cold," she stated, with a voice that bordered meek. She did not know how they ended up here. Upstairs. Well, she knew as she was the one to help him up the stairs - his arm slung around her shoulders and hers wrapped around his torso while the other used the wall for support to displace some of the weight. His labored breathing. Her mutters of apologies. The multiple breaks they had to take up the sixteen steps to whose benefit she was not sure. Both of them were reduced to sweaty, panting messes. One with acute sharp pain and the other with dull strain. She knew all the specifics. In general. In general, she did not know how they ended up here.

"You should have the bed." She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door on the left. He had already seen the inside of it. He had to, in order to, use the only full bath in the one bedroom one and a half bath apartment.

"I don't want to inconvenience you any more than I already have," he gestured to the mint green couch. "It looks comfy." His eyes dipped on the blankets in her arms. The ones she was holding tightly without even realizing that to be the case. "And those will keep me warm." There was hesitation, enough for her to pick up on. He was unsure of something. "Are you alright?" He asked.

She frowned at the question. "I'm fine." She practically tossed the blankets to the couch. "I'll be just there," she pointed to the door on the left, the one he had walked through. "Knock if you need anything. The bathroom is across the hall. There are extra towels in the storage cabinet on the second and third shelves. New toiletries on the first. If you get hungry or thirsty, help yourself to the kitchen and the fridge. Um…," she scratched her head, glancing at the water bottles on the end tables - well within reach. "I think that's everything."

"Okay," he smiled. It came across as reassuring almost. "Goodnight."

She nearly scoffed at how utterly ridiculous it was for him to say that. Not to mention it was practically morning. Dawn had risen. She pulled her feet from the plush rug and turned away from him. She did not let her feet stagnate. They were after all the reason why she was in this mess. So why slow down now?

Sakura closed the door of her room behind her, leaning against it as she heard the breath she felt leaving her chest in her ears; her forehead flush against the painted white door. She pulled her eyes closed. It was not hard. Her lashes felt like curtains of lead. With a deep breath, she engaged the lock, knowing that he heard it. The building she was in was old. And the action was loud. She slowly walked to her side of the bed, dragging her feet. She pulled the cover and slipped inside. She reached for the pill container on the nightstand, finding it without seeing. Items were jostled from their place and they protested in vocal dissent. She did not bother to turn on the light. She filled her cupped hand with gummies. She counted five. Two point five times the recommended max dosage. She figured it would do the trick in keeping her asleep. Because she needed to sleep. Because if she slept, maybe she would wake up from this nightmare.

Or at the very least think straight.

She threw the gummies back, chewing for a lot longer than she had anticipated. Her mouth was left dry but she did nothing to alleviate the problem that she created. Instead, Sakura lowered her head back onto her pillow and stubbornly forced her eyes closed in pursuit of the improbable.

xXx

He blinked at the dark ceiling. He could make out the edges of the plastic blade of the white ceiling fan. It was stationary. The blankets smelled faintly of detergent and fabric softener. They were a little stale. Like they had been sealed shortly after being laundered. They were clean. Just as everything else about her apartment was. Her shower was without mold, discolored grout, or soap stains despite the no shortage of products lining the shampoo shelf. And the glass door was without hard water buildup. It spoke to the fact that she spent a considerable amount of time on upkeep. The water did not drain as well as it should have. She needed to unclog her pipes. He figured her long hair - which she had braided after her shower, still wet - was the culprit.

He never slept well in new surroundings despite having years of practice due to the nature of his job. Opportunity rarely came close to home, especially during the early stages where it had to be nurtured closely as it did not have historical data to fall back on. Something he was trying to spoon-feed Sasori into realizing. Time and work - a lot of it - went into making things operate smoothly. A lot of sleepless nights and trial and error where the margin for failure was razor-sharp. It was either excel at the fringes well enough to pull attention from the center or be thrown into the center - where all the dirty work lay. It was not easy to carve his path that benefited the hand that raised him while being able to look himself in the eye every time he came across a reflective surface. It was closer to impossible.

Kind of like right now in trying to sleep. Everything smelled faintly of her. He was exhausted. His body was tired. She was right, he needed rest. Minato tapped his index finger against his folded hands. His mind raced. He was thinking about everything. From the inside of her shower walls to what hell awaited him - them - in the full light of a new day where the consequences of yesterday would be harder to hide. Bigger. Their problems would seem bigger tomorrow. It was already problematic that they - as in him and her as one entity…together - had problems at all. He needed answers. But they would not come now. He had no means of communication. She did not have a landline and she had taken her cell phone with her.

Perhaps it was foolish but he did not believe she would turn him into the authorities. The facts seemed to substantiate this. The biggest fact was that he did not wake up cuffed to a hospital bed. He had been in and out of consciousness enough for her to find time to call them and absolve herself of this - of him.

You're a criminal.

She had said the words to him, to his face while they were under fire of all times. That was before she had seen his tattoos. They were distinctive. They branded him. They were his label. He did not know how well-versed she was in Konoha history - clan history - but the perfect circle on his left pectoral muscle, the one filled in with three wavy horizontal lines, connected by three smaller vertical ones denoted to whom he was loyal. To who owned him.

Nothing is without conditions.

Everything had a price. This was his - the price for his loyalty: she knew. She knew what he did. She knew what he was. She knew all that without knowing his name. He closed his eyes, wishing the fan was on because at least that way he had an excuse - a reason - to hold onto as to why he did not hear her whimpering and mumbling in the too-quiet house where a gurgle of his empty stomach was on par with a clap of thunder. She was talking in her sleep. She was having a nightmare.

She was crying.

That was her price for helping him. It was just a small subset of what she owed all because he was in the wrong place and at the wrong time. He ignored the recollection of intrusive thoughts. The ones that had filled his mind while he fought for his life.

Away. He had to lead them away from the platform. Away from people. Away from her. It was not logical. Her train did not arrive until much later but that was where his headspace was. Getting them away.

I should have stayed away.

But it was much too late.

He grabbed the back of the couch and pulled himself up with a grunt. Minato pressed his hand to where a hole had been carved out of him in the blink of an eye. One moment he had been standing on the platform and the next, he was on his ass. Bleeding. Only his reflexes and luck saved his life. Before she got to him and saved it for good. Both feet were on the soft rug. He waited - counted to ten - nothing changed. She was still groaning and crying. Pleading for it to stop; for what had already been set in motion.

Maybe if he had just been more decisive and less stubborn, the picture could have completely changed. Maybe he would have been either dead or back in his quarters and she…Sakura would be sound asleep, spared of having to experience this.

Spared of having to carry my burden.

Minato pushed up to his feet. He walked over the rug and onto the cold, wooden floorboards. They creaked. He waited outside her door. The sounds of her distress were even louder. He knocked. Softly. Once. Then once more. Nothing changed. Like a madman, he tried the handle. It did not budge. He did not know what he was thinking or expecting. He knew it was locked. He knocked again, louder this time.

"Sakura," he called out her name, waiting with his wrapped knuckles against her door.

I'm sorry.

"P-please," she wailed followed by the sounds of thrashing sheets.

He sighed, turning his back and slumping to the floor. He hung his head and she continued to be tormented by a dream of a memory.

I'm sorry.

She bit the side of her thumbnail. It was flexible and nearly transparent. Her knees were pulled to her chest and her arms wrapped around her. Her face was tight from the tears she shed. She stared at the door. Gawing on her nail.

I have a criminal…a killer in my house!

Her life had turned into one of those true crime documentaries she loved so much, literally overnight.

I shot a gun. Three times. I shot someone.

Her lips trembled. She had hit someone. Her hands - the ones she used to uphold her oath of doing no harm - had harmed someone. She could have killed someone. Sure, coffee blondie had told her that she hit his hand so the chances of him dying from that were low. But Blondie could have been lying to her. Before yesterday - before even twelve hours ago - her worst offense as a citizen was jaywalking. But now, she had made the jump straight to potential murder.

It was for self-defense.

Sure. Even she could believe that. Maybe even convince a jury of that. Especially if she cried. No one liked seeing a grown person crying and it had been brought to her attention - by none other than Ino - that she was a very ugly crier. Maybe they would believe the self-defense line for the shooting. But everything that followed? That was inexcusable. She had performed surgery on a criminal. In her clinic. Her clinic was not sanctioned for that. She could lose her license on top of being thrown in jail for decades. If the syndicate did not kill her first. And he was still in her house.

He needs to go. He needs to leave.

Only then could she figure out what to do next. She could lie, she could tell the police that he forced her to treat him. That he held a gun to her head.

They won't believe he could fire a shot with the state of his hands.

With one being swollen nearly double its original size - his fingers would not fit around the trigger - and the other being unresponsive given the fact that he was shot in his shoulder. Her stomach churned violently.

I could just say I was too scared to think straight. But…then they'll ask how I was able to take the bullet out and stitch him up…I could say muscle memory! That I could do that in my sleep. That part is true at least.

She barely had to think about it. Sakura pulled at her still-damp hair without any conscious thought of doing so. Her teeth clicked against the nail. Guilt. She felt guilt. She felt guilty for her rapidly forming plan. It was ridiculous and absurd but it changed nothing.

Breakfast. I'll give him breakfast and a headstart before I call the police.

She nodded her head. It seemed like a reasonable enough compromise. It would give her time to iron out her story and fill the holes with something remotely related to believable. Sakura pulled her arms from around her legs, she swung them to the side of the bed. She shoved her feet into her pink slippers. Her legs were shaky as she made her way to the door. But she was gaining more and more stability the longer she stood on her own two feet. She slid the lock to the right, unlocking it.

She breathed - inhaling and exhaling three times slowly - and turned the doorknob pulling the door open. She did not see him on the couch. The thump, thump, thump, of her heartbeat was for naught. She could see the light on under the gap between the door and the floor across from her.

He's in the bathroom.

She moved quickly to the kitchen. So quickly that the hallway floor could have been replaced with burning coals in her sleep - the way she had scurried. She opened and closed her cabinets searching for reason to the madness.

She drummed her fingers against the cabinet door; finding a modicum of comfort in the act.

xXx

He found her in the kitchen. Her back was to him. She was swimming in her berry-colored long-sleeved nightshirt. It could fall off either one of her shoulders at any moment it seemed. The scooped hem touched her knees. The heat from the furnace was too high but that could have also been the lingering hold of his fever. He stood there, awkwardly feeling very much out of place. She knew he was there. He had not been quiet with his footfalls and her shoulders were stiff. But it seemed she was perfectly content not acknowledging his presence until he forced the issue. Which would have to be soon because he was starting to feel a little lightheaded now that he had stilled in for more than a minute.

Minato cleared his throat. "Good morning," he said to her wrought with tension back, finding the greeting inadequate. The proper greeting for apologizing for almost getting her killed and making her save him only to crash on her couch escaped his mind.

"Morning," she murmured without turning around. "Sit."

That he could do. He made his way to the small eat-in kitchen. There was a table with two counter-height chairs. He pulled one of the chairs upholstered with slate-gray cloth, and he sat down. He lowered his palms flat against the cool marble surface. The slab was thick - two inches wide and white with gray and brown veining. It was beautiful. A yellow ceramic bowl was placed in front of him. There was a spoon inside. Next, a box of cereal and a gallon of milk joined it on the table.

"Do you want toast? Fruit?" She asked from the counter. "I have bananas…I had a banana," she corrected with a scratch of her head. "I ate it yesterday at work," she mumbled, probably not for his ears to hear.

"This is fine," he shook his head, not sure for whose benefit. He reached for the box, trying not to strain himself which in and of itself seemed impossible. Frustration was starting to collect and it had only been hours of living with this. He poured the cereal first - clumsily. He made a small mess of the squares that fell out of the bowl. His aim was off and his grip was not tight enough. The box had just about slipped from his fingers. But he managed. The smell of cinnamon sugar filled his nose. He set the box back on the tabletop slowly. Before his fingers could curl around the handle of the milk gallon, she was sitting across from him. He did not even hear the chair squeak when she pulled it back.

"Let me," she opened the gallon, holding the red cap in her hand. She began to fill the bowl with milk. The cereal made crackling sounds as it damped. Like dry rice over a flame.

"Thank you," he held up his hand. The stream of milk stopped. He did not look up from his breakfast. Sounds of another bowl being prepped filled the silence between them. He began to eat, chewing slowly.

"How are you feeling?" She asked after some time. He was already halfway done. "Any nausea or lightheadedness?"

"No," he did not need to look up to know she was not looking anywhere remotely at him. "Just a little," he added unprompted, noting the way her lips pulled into a frown. "When I stand too long. Very mild."

"Define too long?" She asked, eyes narrowed.

"More than a couple of minutes?" He answered without much confidence.

"Do you feel either thing now?"

"No." He shook his head for good measure to show her that was not the case.

"Did you pass out at all? Hit your head?" She spoke quickly. "I did a test for a concussion but that's about all I can do without any scans."

"No," he said firmly to end that train of thought before she got really invested. "I didn't lose consciousness until I was in the chair and I didn't hit my head."

"Good," she said in that detached tone of hers. The one that pointed to neither good nor bad. "Coffee?"

"Later. And my treat," he said with a small smile, raising his eyes to her. His comment caught her off guard enough for her to break her own unsaid rule. She was staring at him. Blinking owlishly. "I'll order in."

Sakura cleared her throat, thinking better of voicing the question she contained on her face. "I'll pack some antibiotics for you. Be sure to take them. For ten days. No drinking during that time. Take them either with or followed by food. They might mess up your stomach a bit. Eating smaller, more frequent meals should help. Avoid overly processed foods. Avoid oil. Avoid dairy a few hours before and after taking the pills. You should have your next pill around four. Every twelve hours."

"Okay," he nodded his head to show he was listening because she had gone back to avoiding eye contact.

"And take over-the-counter pain medication as needed. They will not interfere with the antibiotics. Follow the instructions on the bottle." Her nails tapped against the table. He focused on a splatter of milk on the gray mat. "I think that's everything," she mused distractedly, drifting off to finish crossing out the list.

"Can I use your computer?" He asked her, pulling her back in.

"W-what?" She blinked before frowning.

"I lost my phone," he lied. His wallet sat on the end table closest to where his head had been for some of the night. "For the coffee."

"Oh," she was far from convinced. "Sure." She stood up. Her breakfast was untouched. "I'll leave it on the coffee table," her voice called out from somewhere behind him. "Don't worry about washing or cleaning anything."

"Thanks." He rose to put his dish in the sink. They traded places. He settled back onto the couch while she found her chair again. Minato pulled her laptop to his lap. There was no password screen when he clicked the first key he could find. He frowned at her factory default desktop screen. "No VPN?" He asked, eyes peering over the metal edge.

Sakura furrowed her brow. "I don't even know what that is."

Too open. Too trusting. Too naive.

Minato sighed. He opened a browser in incognito mode and set about installing a VPN client.

The coffee could wait.

xXx

He was watching the news with zero volume and closed captions when there was a knock on the door. Sakura froze from the sink. Her hands dropped the bowl to the bottom. But judging from the lack of shattering, it did not break. Minato glanced at her before slowly getting up to his feet, gingerly holding his side. He pulled the black zip-up hoodie on the back of the couch - it was one of the articles of clothing she had offered him last night - and slipped his good arm inside while draping the other end over his injured shoulder, hiding the bandages. He held it closed to block his tattoos from view. At the second and third knocks, he was pulling money from his wallet. He balled it into his fist before moving to the peephole. The bored face of a teenager greeted him.

He sent his nephew.

Minato blinked but the image before him did not change. Sakura was in the living room now, wearing an expression of fear. His hesitation was feeding into her intrusive thoughts. Minato pulled open the door, mindful not to reveal too much. He smiled at the delivery boy.

"Delivery," Nawaki said with a yawn, still in the process of waking up completely. "Two coffees. And pastries." He shoved the offerings in the space between their bodies. The white bag was sealed closed with the orange logo. A holdover from the pandemic years. "You must really like Naruto's," he said with judgment. He had to bike close to an hour out of his way for it after all because the subway station was closed in Tani for some reason. He had not been paying attention when his uncle ordered him to make the delivery. All Nawaki cared about was the added minutes - hours - to gaming console access he was promised. There was no way that the coffee was still warm.

"Thanks." Minato swapped the bills for the coffee and bag. It took some creative thinking but he was able to pin the bags between his torso and arm that held the cup holder tray all while appearing normal-adjacent. It helped that the boy was clearly uninterested in why the man was behaving the way he was. So mechanical and stiff.

"Anytime, Mister." Nawaki grinned as he pocketed the two twenties. He bounded down the stairs on his way to his red bike with baskets both in the front and back that waited down by the street lamp. Chained up.

Now it makes sense why it took him so long to get here.

Minato watched him pedal off before he closed the door - not before looking left and right to ensure no one had seen him. He closed the door. He set down the tray on a console table against the wall. The same one that had a bowl for keys. He latched the lock. Grabbing the tray, he turned around. His heart sank to his toes.

Sakura was staring wide-eyed at the TV. He deposited everything on the table and made his way to her.

"Hey," he said gently, touching her arm in a tentative gesture.

Sakura did not recoil away but that did not fill him with anything remotely positive. She stared at him despondent. Minato coaxed her into a seated position as he did not trust her legs to support her for much longer. She did not fight him. He found the remote on the coffee table. He turned the TV off.

"It's going to be okay," he said, not sure if she heard him. She was staring at him blankly, not all there and present. "Don't worry," he smiled. "Let's just drink coffee okay?"

It felt as if he was holding his breath for a lifetime. She nodded.

xXx

Zero reported injuries. That was what the news reported. But how could that be possible? She for a fact knew that three people were injured. The woman with the cut foot, - the one who had screamed that "they" were shooting - the man with a hole in his hand, and the man who had been shot in the shoulder - the same man who was currently in the bathroom. The water was running. The TV was off. The coffee which had been tepid was now cold. The pastries went untouched.

No bodies. That was what the news meant. They did not find any bodies.

Yet.

She blinked slowly, pressing her thumbnail into her wrist. She needed to keep it together long enough for him to leave. She glanced at the bathroom door. She let out a shaky breath. She jumped out of her skin when something vibrated loudly. She swiped her phone from the coffee table. She pressed the call button before bringing it to her ear.

"H-hello?" She spoke into the receiver.

"Sakura! Where are you? You didn't report for your shift."

Shit.

She closed her eyes, desperately thinking of an excuse. Her words abandoned her.

xXx

He paced in the small bathroom. There was not much room to work with. "You said you handled it," his voice was contained and collected - held together by the steel of his composure.

"I know," the voice sounded guilty. Barely. "I messed up."

No shit.

If he was even a modicum less charged he would have taken a moment to appreciate that he was not presented with a string of excuses. But he was not there. He was not in that headspace.

"Do you need the doctor to see you?" Sasori asked him after a prolonged silence. "I can get you."

"I'm fine," he breathed into the receiver of the burner phone.

"Good," there was a pregnant pause. "What do you need?"

"Clothes. Supplies." Amo. He needed ammunition. "Do not write down or repeat the address I'm about to give you to anyone. Make sure you don't have a tail."

"Right."

Minato spoke the address three buildings down. It would take a while for Sasori to earn back his trust enough to be given the exact location.

"I'll be there in thirty."

"I need an hour," he disconnected the call. Minato watched the water move down the drain, trying and failing to not see the foreshadowing. He twisted the knob to turn the tap off. He opened the door. He could hear her voice. She spoke quicker as he stepped into the hall. By the time he was in front of her, her phone was in her lap. Her legs were crossed on the couch cushion. "Who were you talking to?" His question came out harsher than he intended.

She flinched. "W-Work," Sakura tumbled over the word. "They called to ask why I wasn't in. I told them I wasn't feeling well."

He felt himself relax. "Good. Can I see your phone?" He held out his hand preemptively in a gesture that did not even pretend she had a choice in the matter. She just did not know it yet.

She hesitated but ultimately complied. "Are you calling someone to pick you up?" She asked with poorly concealed hope in her voice.

I'm sorry…again.

His exterior did not betray his intention. Minato bent down and slammed the phone into the sharp edge of her coffee table. The screen shattered. His teeth were gnashed together in a jolt that woke just about all the angry receptors in his body.

"What the hell?!" She asked in outrage, shooting up to her feet. She was much too slow to hang onto anything other than her indignation.

"I'm not going anywhere," he declared. His emotions were still not sorted. Too much was swimming inside of him. "If you need to talk to someone, tell me. You can use my burner."

Sakura sputtered, unintelligibly. "Your burner?" She shook her head. "When did you…? Where did you…?" She pulled at her hair, pushing her fingertips to her temples. "Slow down," she breathed deeply. "Go back." Her hands were pressed together and pointed at him. Out of context, it could have been mistaken for prayer.

"You shot someone," Minato reminded her crassly. "What do you know about the Akatsuki?"

What do you think you know about the Akatsuki?

"Beyond that they are a bunch of criminals, you mean?" Sakura shot back, angry. Too angry to be scared. Or maybe using the anger to mask her fear. He did not know her well enough to discern the nuances.

"Konoha," he began, reminding himself to be patient. It was hard as this was an unsavory topic that he did not particularly care to be discussing. "How many clans do you think are in the syndicate? How many factions do you think there are in Konoha?"

"I don't know. Ten?" She answered with her hands on her hips. "What's that got to do with you going psycho on my phone?"

"Keep your voice down," he narrowed his eyes trying to make himself seem more intimidating, and dangerous. He needed her cooperation first and foremost. Forgiveness came later. If it was in the cards. "Try a hundred and thirty-four."

"One hundred…," her voice trailed off as her eyes widened.

"In a population of ten million, there are a hundred and thirty-four clans tied to the syndicate." Minato pressed on the point of vulnerability. The vulnerability that said she was beginning to realize just how bad this all was. The fewer specifics she knew, the sooner she obeyed and did as instructed, the better the likelihood that she came out of this mostly unscathed. She needed to listen to him. Without question. And without hesitation.

"And you shot the nephew of the Uchiha Clan in the hand," he delivered the decisive blow flatly.

"U-Uchiha?" She uttered in disbelief. Her eyes widened even more to levels he did not think were possible. "Uchiha," she breathed out the name like it was forbidden. "They…they…." She clamped her mouth closed, going numb with fear.

Good. Remember this feeling. Hold onto this feeling. It might just save your life.

"Now you see why you can't call the police?" Minato's voice did not lose its hard edge even as warmth bled into his icy eyes, coloring them closer to cobalt again - involuntarily.

She slumped back into the couch, leaving him with concern that she would pass out. He moved back, lowering into the accent chair. Her crushed phone was held in his bandaged hand. Tight.

Chapter Text

"I shot an Uchiha," she murmured, rocking slightly back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth on the edge of her seat on the couch; legs folded under her. Swaddled in a blanket so thoroughly that only her face showed. A giant blob of pink so ridiculous that he found himself wondering if any of this was real. Her mindless utterances - a gasp, a sigh, a groan, consonant sounds strung together in an intelligible mess - pulled him back each and every time before he wadded in too deep into entertaining that particular notion. "The Uchihas are in the Akatsuki," she switched it up with zero traces of acceptance in her tone.

The Uchiha run the Akatsuki. A large enough faction of it.

He nodded his head in a gesture not registered by her in too forgone state.

She's handling it better than I thought she would.

There was a distinct lack of tears which was a plus. A major one.

She's coherent. She's reacting to verbal stimuli. She's still engaged to some extent with her environment.

An environment he was becoming more accustomed to - practically fused to the furniture or the past couple of hours. He was hunched over - in what could not be good for either his posture or his injury - in her beige accent chair with a yellow and mint floral print. The yellow decorative pillow was placed over his lap so his hand connected to his injured shoulder could rest on it. He had found a pack of frozen peas as well as some off-the-counter painkillers in the hallway bathroom medicine cabinet that numbed the constant stinging.

A fraction.

"Drink your water," he reminded her, flipping the side of his makeshift ice pack against the bandages.

Sakura reached for the glass without really seeing it, almost pushing it off the table with her initial grab. The edge of the meniscus rocked back and forth drawing his gaze and focus momentarily. Her reflection was distorted on the bottom of the round glass when she brought it to her lips to drink slowly. Her hand shook when she set it back down. She did not bother with the marble coaster which was right there for her to use.

Maybe I judged too soon.

He wet his lips and cleared his throat. He chose not to engage with the errant thought of a water ring developing on her dark wood table. "The Akatsuki," he began noticing the way the name seemed to snap her out of the trance she was in. Her eyes were sharp and her mouth was closed. She listened with everything she had. Sanity was slowly coming back to her, within reach. Her hand was clenched around the edge of the blanket.

"Is the overall umbrella term for the crime syndicate. It's all encapsulating. It means the same thing in Konoha, in the countryside of Fire, and everything between the dunes of Sand and the islands of Water."

Akatsuki is a standard. It's the standard.

"To be a member of Akatsuki certain requirements need to be met. As the organization grew, more and more clans started to buy in. They saw the profit that was there. They developed their own traditions, customs, and procedures. Limitations and expectations on top of the base Akatsuki by-laws," he explained at a more granular level than he ought to. She was shot at. The least he could do was to try to explain why. Just enough to drive the seriousness across so she would not question the lengths that were being taken. But maybe he was just lying to himself. Maybe there was an ulterior motive he was not ready to admit.

They are almost always more stringent…more restrictive. The clans demand more.

No matter what clan or faction they come from, one thing stays the same: loyalty. Loyalty to your clan. Loyalty to your brethren. Loyalty to your boss. Loyalty to the father - the head of the clan. Loyalty above all else. Nothing else mattered.

Everything else is just excuses.

"Out of those one hundred thirty-four clans, really only five of them hold ninety-nine percent of the power. The five royal clans of Konoha or the five royal families depending on preference."

The Senju, Aburame, Hyuuga, Uchiha, and Nara.

The five houses. Skill. Humility. Discipline. Pride. Intelligence. Each clan was noteworthy for a specific reason - a defining characteristic. The five families that ran Konoha and by extension the Land of Fire.

Meanwhile, the remaining one hundred twenty-nine keep themselves busy fighting for scraps, chasing the pipedream that they can move up. The myth of upward mobility in this line of business.

The divide was simply too great to bridge. It was a fissure that could hold the depths of the East Ocean that sustained Wave, Whirlpool, Mist, and Water - the nations that led the fish, seaweed, sugar cane, netting, fishing supplies, opium, and coconut trade. A simplified list that was collected from what was top of mind.

Minato took a moment to pause to assess just how much she was retaining. Her eyes were not glazed over. Her expression was not blank. She was staring at him and not through him. All visual cues pointed to continue.

"Coincidentally - or perhaps not - they are the five oldest clans in Konoha. They have a substantial foothold on all Akatuski operations within Konoha and all the way to the borders of Fire. Of those five, two are tiers about the rest - in a gridlock at the top." Tied for first. They each controlled half. Exactly half. The other three were in control by name only. They were kept in the conversation out of both respect for their historical achievements - they were in steady, predictable decline and that was not even considering the numerous splinters of dissent within them - and to give the illusion of stability. Balance maintained by the two clans that rivaled each other down to the hair - even with near-even numbers. Minato brought his hand to cover the clan symbol on his chest. Under the palm, under the bandages, he felt it burn.

"The Uchiha and the Nara," he said, the names rolling off his tongue like water. Smooth and unbothered. Tranquil. A simple fact. He waited. He watched. He assessed. All without saying another word. He wanted to know what that meant to her - if anything.

Her brow furrowed automatically while the rest of her face pulled into a frown. "The Uchihas run the police force," she pulled the dusty pink blanket closer to her. The shiny gold pineapples winked at him in minor distraction. "And the Nara's breed deer. For medicine, for their pelt, skin, and meat. I've worked with a couple of pharmaceutical reps that are Naras for my clinic in the past…in the earlier years but then I got priced out," she added with a start. The calculation occurring in her brain was hinted at by the way her eyes moved from left to right. She shook her head, clearing herself of the doubt. "There's some mistake," she searched his face desperately. "There has to be a mistake."

Denial. The first stage.

"Amongst other things," he did not outright deny what was the truth. The truth that the Clan's public relations rep worked so hard to cultivate and propagate. "The Nara work in City Hall too. They manage the books of the city. They have the sharpest brains." They were known for their pragmatism and level-headedness. Shrewd and calculating. Attractive qualities by all means - on either side of the law.

"Oh my God," she covered her mouth. Her face drained of color as it froze wearing a mask of petrification. "He saw me." Her voice reached shrill levels. "I have pink hair!"

"I know," he countered with calm. He had more experience. It was not all that hard falling back into it. Problem solving. It was what he did day in and day out on a fundamental level. "They would have used your phone to track you." He could not bring himself to finish the sentiment. Not when she was staring at him so scared - terrified.

Then there's your driver's license.

They would not need a warrant. Just like it would not take that much work to find her. Her identifiers - namely her hair - were unique. With a few clicks and several moments - maybe at most half an hour - they could have her address across a screen. A minute detail that did not need to be brought up now. No, it would not help matters in the slightest.

Quite the opposite. It would be detrimental. Because Sakura started to shake. Like the last leaf left on a barren tree branch during a fall rainstorm. It was happening, the moment he had been preparing for but hoping to not encounter. He inhaled as deep as the bindings that contained him and the weight of his culpability would allow.

Too much. Too fast. Too soon.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Unforgiving as the gunshots had been.

"They'll find me! They'll kill me!" Tears filled her eyes quickly, contained by her eyelids. Her lower lip was held captive by her teeth but not before a heavy pant of fear left her lungs. An emotion translated the second it hit the open air before filling his lungs. It burned him in accusation she did say out loud.

"No," he said firmly. His voice was tight. There was no room for doubt. He left no possibility for what she just realized. Truly. "No, they won't."

The heavy tears spilled from her eyes, hanging from her chin. Waiting. "They'll kill me," she stifled a sob with her hands. The blanket slipped from her shoulders. Shoulders that were shaking as much as the rest of her.

No. No one will touch a hair on your head.

"Sakura," he pushed up from the seat, indifferent to any pain or discomfort that was not tied to what was pouring out in front of him. He approached her, lowering onto the space. Everything about him was intentional. Controlled. In control. "I'll protect you. I won't let them hurt you," he promised her with everything he was worth, ignoring the fact that in her eyes that could mean next to nothing.

I'll keep you safe.

"You're just saying that," she shook her head, face still hidden in her hands. She inhaled wetly. A shattered breath.

"Shh," he held the back of her head, guiding it to his uninjured shoulder - the part of him that was still structurally sound. He ran his cumbersome swollen fingers through her hair. The fine strands like spider silk cut and clung to his skin. The glide was far from smooth so he changed tactics. The sweetness of vanilla and the warmth of amber wood entered the air - permeating it - with each whirlpool of his fingertips against her scalp.

Sweet. Warm. Earthy.

It suited her every bit as much as her name did; if he was allowed a moment to think such things.

"Nothing will happen to you." He would not let it. He would make this right. No matter the personal cost. Out of principle of the matter.

I won't let it.

"You're injured," she murmured into his neck, her damp lips tickling, voice muffled. Salt was trapped and captured by his skin from each tear shed. Heavy they sank.

"It doesn't matter," he said simply because it was neither here nor there. It was nothing more than an insignificant detail. "It's going to be okay."

It will be.

A green eye shiny and surrounded by red peeked up at him. Timid and meek. Everything he knew her not to be. Everything the circumstances made her become.

I'll fix it.

"You saved my life. Let me save yours," he said with the gentleness of his hand lowering to brush the hair from her face. His thumb grazed over her cheekbones, wicking away moisture as it went before it had a chance to dry out her soft skin. "You're going to be okay, Sakura."

She turned her head to hide in the crook of his shoulder, breathing shakily, in response. A response he dare not read into.

xXx

The lazy sun, indecisive on whether or not it wanted to warm in addition to brightening, could not touch him in the shadows of the alleyway. He was amongst the darkness. He had spotted the black car the moment he had rounded the corner. The round fog lights flashed three times to signal it was safe to approach; momentarily illuminating red hair that was shrouded in a black hood. Minato crossed the rest of the way. He opened the door and gingerly settled into the tan leather seats. It took much too much time.

"You don't look that messed up," Sasori said with a gruffness that masked his unease. "Even with your high tolerance."

For pain. For alcohol. For bullshit. Minato did not care to know what Sasori was referring to, specifically regarding the low-effort attempt to break the ice - the ice that surrounded him like a thick shell. His blue eyes noticed the black duffle stern over the backseats.

"Clothes, burner, half a stack, and refills," Sasori did not mince his words once he followed Minato's gaze. His grip was white-knuckle on the metal steering wheel. "Namikaze, look I-"

"Save it," Minato grunted in response to half-turning his body. His right arm moved across his torso before reaching back for the bag. Five thousand dollars in cash, Sasori was shaken. Minato glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten minutes. He had been away for ten minutes already.

This is taking too much time.

He did not want her to wake up and find him not there. That would surely break whatever extent, level, or shade of rapport he had built up. Maybe he was just kidding himself.

He always did call me an optimist.

From the moment the two of them were old enough to know what that word meant. Accurate or not, his desire of not wanting her to greet the world alone had him moving the black strap to his right hand.

"It was fool-proof!" The redhead insisted in anger at himself and the situation, sensing that his time to make his case was running out. Quickly. "It was a done deal," he spoke with his hands, enunciating his confusion. It was a done deal. Just as the less than a handful of the previous ones had been.

"So naturally you sent Inuzuka," Minato countered without color, voice drier than ice of the same name and just as cold. The king of the fools. It was supposed to be clean. Easy. Money was supposed to exchange hands for goods. Money that was supposed to be counted. Goods inspected. That was it. How the dog-crazed man managed to screw that up was beyond the blond. Although it was not surprising, he had the de-escalation skills of a raging bull with its balls tied.

In other words, none. He had no skills in that department. That's why he shouldn't have been anywhere near that deal.

"I couldn't get a hold of Mutt," Sasori said, knowing that there was no understanding or mercy to be allocated to him.

So you know nothing.

Minato summarized the too many words that Sasori was saying which meant nothing because he had nothing. Nothing new to share; nothing that could be used or leveraged to fix this.

"He's either dark or dead. That's why I couldn't warn you sooner."

He's better off dead for his sake.

He had two clans hunting him now. Neither would show him mercy. Death was the most merciful of the options even if it meant more uncomfortable conversations in Minato's future. A familiar face flashed in his mind. Kind brown eyes, long brown hair held back in a low ponytail, red lipstick, and large red triangular earrings. Yet another person he would have to apologize for his shortcomings - for his mistakes. There were a plethora of them.

I should make a list to keep track of them all.

"Keep an ear out. Tell no one where I am." Minato pulled the handle to open the door with the same hand holding the nylon strap of the duffle. He had one foot out of the car and on the crumbled asphalt when Sasori spoke again, halting his movements. Minato closed his eyes and took advantage of the brief break in motion.

"I trusted the wrong man, Namikaze," his brown eyes contained regret. Identifiable.

You're not the only one, Hora.

Minato did not catch the car door as it closed.

"Damn it!" Sasori struck his steering wheel in frustration. The blond had slowly disappeared around the corner from where he had come. Minutes of face-to-face time, as many as the number of days missed, burned through just like that and with no real change.

xXx

"I have vacation days," she said coherently. Her leg moved up and down on the floor. Her foot was balanced over her slipper. The nap - or more accurately, the extreme exhaustion that followed her mental breakdown - helped. Considerably. She tugged at her hair, working out the knots she herself created with hands that would not rest. "About two months."

"Good," Minato said as he inspected the room yet again, mapping out all the potential points of entry. He had finished locking all the single-pane windows. She did not have stoppers for any of them. Something he would need to rectify. It was added to the list on his phone to send to Sasori for the next supply run. "Use them."

"Will that be enough time?" She asked, pulling at the cupped sleeves of her oversized hoodie, hiding her hands.

"Things will blow over," he answered cryptically. Most of his attention was allocated to studying the deadbolt of the door that separated her kitchen from the stairwell. The latching mechanism was slightly suspect. The whole lock moved anytime he grabbed at the handle.

I need a screwdriver.

"What does that mean…exactly?" She asked with hesitation.

"It's better you don't know." In truth, he was not fully aware himself what it meant. But that was something best kept to himself. Again. He pulled on the locked doorknob, testing its give. It rattled. He turned it again. The door did not open.

I need to get a hold of him. Find out the extent of it all.

But things were hardly ever that easy. His counterpart was probably facing a similar level of heat. Well, maybe slightly less intense. Only slightly.

He'll reach out when he's ready.

He always did. Minato could rely on him ironically enough given how they were on opposite sides of the divide - on opposite sides of this.

The door can wait. The lock latches. It doesn't have to be perfect.

He frowned all the same when he pushed it against the frame.

"So I just wait?" Sakura asked with impatience cropping up from being ignored in favor of his spinning thoughts. "Indefinitely? For some man to show up to kill me? Or the whole damn police force? I look around over my shoulder for the rest of my life?" With each successive question-statement, her voice grew more and more uncontrolled. She was pacing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"One thing at a time," Minato said with a sigh. While he could not fault - or even blame - her for wanting to know the so-called plan - a generous term for the odd ends he had - it was rather inconvenient, not to mention not the best use of her time. Something she did not know what to do with.

And you only have an excess of it for the foreseeable future.

"Are you sure you don't have a piece of wood or metal pipe to put in the track for your sliding door?" The only opening he could not secure. He tugged on the knob one more time of the door he had been inspecting. There was no change in its state.

"I'm sure," she answered without missing a beat or breaking her stride. She flailed her too-long sleeves that resembled the arms of one of those air-dancer things at car dealerships. "And what, you just move in?"

For now, yes.

"It's temporary," he glanced at the black duffle at the end of the couch. "Two months is plenty of time. It's excessive."

You'll be out of harm's way sooner than that.

She did not have to endure this level of stress - living like this - for that long. Not if he had anything to say about it.

"Okay," she did not sound convinced but it was progress that she did not openly argue or debate. "Okay." Sakura clapped her hands. She wheeled around.

That was fast.

"Where are you going?" He asked her, stopping her movements by stepping in front of the very door that was to his back.

"To clean," she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. It had escaped the messy bun that sat atop her head. A bun that came into fruition out of necessity. She would have pulled out all her hair otherwise if it was not out of the way. "Downstairs in the clinic," she pointed over his shoulder. "I'll go completely crazy if I sit around doing nothing. I might actually throw myself off my balcony if I watch the news." She wrung her hands while explaining in a clumsy manner that came from a lack of practice. "I need to be productive," she finished without looking directly into his eyes once.

Communication - such a small part of it was verbal and that was why he spent the majority of his time not just listening but observing for tells and other indicators of dishonesty; the inability to make eye contact, or eyes that darted, a glisten of sweat, shaking hands, fluctuating vocal cords, and generic jitteriness - he knew what to keep an eye out for. It was ingrained in him to the point he no longer had to think about it. But not everything was always applicable. There were always exceptions. So when he regarded her downcast eyes, restless foot, teeth that gnawed on her lip, and slightly shaking hands he did not attribute them to deceit. She was being honest in her own clumsy way.

She's not used to explaining herself.

"Okay," he stepped forward in her direction, closing the distance while granting her access to the passageway. The door opened in, after all. Relief momentarily flashed in her big, open, expressive eyes. Two green, clear, reflective pools that he could see down to the bottom. The depth of her soul. Pure and untainted. "I can help."

"I can manage," she spoke to the ground, kicking up invisible dust bunnies with her fuzzy slippers that imitated the fur of the real kind. "You should rest." An order in the form of a suggestion that in another setting she would have been more assertive in passing along. Her eyes found his shoulder, covered by the black hoodie that was partially zipped over his torso.

"You have a cot in there," he had closed the distance by more than a half. "I won't be in the way."

I need to help.

Or at least pretend to.

"I know how to clean up blood," she said defensively, her arms crossed over her chest. She seemingly took offense at her competency being questioned by no one other than herself. Glimmers of the woman peeked through the veil. "I'm not going to come completely undone. The clinic only has two entrances. They both lock. The window is too small for an adult to squeeze through. It will be fine."

"All the same," he measured out his words, meticulously. She was watching him warily. "It would help me rest easier." She was not moved by his words, her stony visage said as much. "I need to go get my gun, Sakura," he delivered the line gently knowing full well the impact the words would have. "Unless you prefer to walk it up to me?" He offered without missing a beat. His eyes were as flat as his face. Blank.

I'm a piece of shit.

And he felt every bit like it, especially when she flinched. The carefully crafted exterior she projected - she donned to protect herself - slipped to reveal a very raw nerve. She shook her head. Quickly. Once - a jerk more than anything - and then in a more contained fashion.

"No," she said to eliminate all doubt where there already was none.

She turned slowly, silently; shoulders hunched inwardly. She peeled her feet from the carpet and onto the linoleum past him. He followed behind her without a sound and a hand pressed against his padded stitches.

xXx

Finally, the last of it.

Sakura grabbed the large black trash bags filled with clothes and deposited them at the foot of the unoccupied cot. She tried not to think too deeply about her actions. It was a losing battle but she was stubborn. Some would even say to a fault - see Ino and Mebuki.

"What are you going to do with them?" She asked him. She was careful to not let her rubber gloves touch her person - mindful even - because that would mean another thing to hand over. To relinquish.

"Handle it," he answered, smiling at her in apology for his lack of openness. To which, she sighed in a frustrated huff. "Plausible deniability is a good thing."

So you keep saying.

"Assuming I make it to trial," she retorted with a snort. Her eyes scanned critically for anything missed just so she would not have to sit with the reality of her comment. She did not need the images of her imagination to take up additional space along with her memories.

"There won't be a trial," his lips settled into a frown. His brows were bunched together. He held a small glass vial in his gloved hand - a testament to their stretching capabilities. Short and stout. "You gave me vodka when you had Lidocaine?" He could not quite filter out all the traces of accusation from his question. Or maybe she was just reading too much into it.

There's a word for it and it's called projecting.

"Lidocaine is heavily regulated, vodka is not," she quipped without snark.

Not to mention it's much cheaper.

Sakura was on her hands and knees again scrubbing away at the floor. Her voice was muffled through the R95-certified blue face mask. The smell of bleach was pungent in the air. Even the cracked open window did not help. Nor did the small floor fan that was spinning at its fastest setting facing the window.

"I would have to report why I used Lidocaine," she continued to explain at the look he wore on his face. The one she did not need to see to feel. "And I don't think the police would buy that I dropped one on accident."

If they let me live long enough to finish a sentence.

"Probably not," he returned the liquid painkiller to the cabinet. He straightened it out so that the label was facing the same direction and the two vials behind it. "So your paperwork is in order?"

Those are fighting words, Blondie.

Sakura scoffed, rubbing the bristled brush aggressively against the tile, working out her frustrations on what she could - exerting control where she could. "It's completely legitimate," she said with a scowl that he could hear in her voice. "Above board."

Or it was.

"Why have it at all?" Minato asked her, locking the cabinet closed, leaving the keys where he had found them, tucked away in a desk drawer.

"There was - is - a need," she used her forearm to wipe away the sweat collecting on her brow. The yellow bristles of the brush moved in sweeping circles.

"Is money the issue?" He walked back over to the cot, leaning against the edge of it. He would need to retake some more painkillers. His shoulder was starting to be unbearable again. Talking was a welcomed distraction. "The government pays ER bills, doesn't it? Your tax dollars are hard at work."

Money is always an issue but it's only part of it.

"Not everyone trusts the government," she bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from adding more to it. And now, she knew why. "Or it's too inconvenient. I try to help where I can. Fill the gaps." It was sad just how wide the many gaps were. Working in a hospital taught her up close and personal just how many people were not being helped.

Even this clinic doesn't meet the demand.

"Why not do this full-time then?"

Wasn't he supposed to be resting? This does not feel or sound like resting.

"I'm not independently wealthy," she responded with more heat than what was warranted. The question was innocent enough. It was one she was used to answering. Her clinic was humble. Her clinic was not advertised. But despite this, through word of mouth and her less-than-flashy website that Hiro had set up for her, she had a stream of patients. Sometimes repeat. And of those repeat, a handful did not even live within walking distance.

"Clearly," Minato did not have to look further than the stretch of town she was in. "Is this why you live here? Still?"

You don't even know his name and he expects you to spill your life story to him…and you are. You should ask him how high the next time he opens his mouth.

"Partially," she admitted with less reluctance. Talking helped - even if she would only admit it to herself. It gave her some semblance of normalcy to talk about her clinic. It was a topic she knew well and did not mind engaging in. "I moved into this building during my residency, back before I knew better and definitely could not afford any better." She smiled fondly thinking of her neighbors. "It just became home." It was home.

He did not comment. She did not press. Sakura had more than enough thoughts swimming in her head to keep her occupied. Her home. He was in her home. A last line of defense against others who might want to do the same - albeit more violently. And maybe that was why she tolerated his questions, his attempts to engage, his prying - setting aside for a moment that she had no real choice in the matter - because somewhere deep down she believed him. As outrageous as it was to think about it for more than a split-second. She believed him to not hurt her. Or maybe it was just that he was the lesser of the evils. She prided herself in reading people, a skill she had to develop out of necessity, and maybe that was the root of it. Her ego. She trusted her abilities. So by extension, she trusted him. Just as far as she could throw him. She sniffled behind her mask, scrunching her nose, losing track of herself.

Lost.

He had not moved in some time. Fixated on his target. The face on the wall with magenta - not red - hair and blue eyes with flecks of green smiled at him openly and without discrimination. He read the name embroidered across his chest.

S. Haruno.

A husband. A brother. A cousin. An uncle. The options had not narrowed themselves. The picture quality was too clear for him to be her father. Even if she had been fathered young. Minato glanced down at the borrowed clothes he wore - the sweatpants and the hoodie (because he refused to wear another man's underwear) - making the connection that they belonged to this Haruno. Whoever he was.

Who is he to you?

He could not help but wonder, left to ruminate because he had no right to ask. He had no right to inquire whose clothes were on his back. Whose loved one he had endangered. Just whose world he had thrown out of orbit when he crashed into it - into her.

She didn't ask to use the phone.

In her own home. In her own life such was the absurdity of it. She had to ask him - every bit as much of a stranger to her as the man behind the glass was to him - to make a call.

Minato pulled the latex off his hand with some difficulty, tossing the glove into the garbage bag. His hand felt grainy. It smelled even more egregious than it felt. His attention returned to her. She cleaned, scrubbing away at the tile and grout thoroughly for any traces of him. It was as if he was seeing her with new eyes - a new perspective.

She had given him her number. He was not that ill-versed on how these things worked. She did not seem like the type to cheat - to two-time someone. The conflict had troops as far east as the narrowest stretch of the East Ocean that separated Fire from the edges of the islands that made up the Land of Mist. It had been that way for the past couple of years. The soldier, S. Haruno could be stationed there while she was here.

Are you waiting for him?

He did not acknowledge the way his stomach clenched at the possibility. It was an assumption. And assumptions were dangerous. They lulled you into a false sense of security. He got complacent. And that was how he ended up in this mess, dragging her down into it with him. He had assumed it was safe. Incorrectly.

Are you divorced?

That seemed more likely from what little he without a doubt knew of her and what he thought he did.

Widowed?

The thought never occurred to him in nearly a year. He had not wanted to think about it. She was a doctor. She had been a doctor for some years. That put her in her early thirties. It was not beyond the realm of normality that she had been married prior. That too could be the case. Tragic and unfortunate. To be left alone in the world so young. The phantom pangs originating from his heart spoke to a softness that only he knew existed. Solitude. Loneliness. So profound and encompassing that it was hard to describe and explain to those who knew not of it.

Are you lonely? Is that why your eyes always contain sadness…even when you smile?

"Um..sir?"

He blinked out of her reverie. He furrowed his brow as she snapped off her gloves to toss them with the other towels and things she had used, all of them settled into the black garbage bag.

"I'm done." She stared at him expectantly for him to weigh in, to give his appraisal.

"It looks good," Minato said after his eyes came up empty. "I'll take care of the bags. You can leave them here."

"Okay." She moved them to the top of the chairs. She tied the opening close and dusted her hands. "Lunch?"

"Sure," he brought a hand to his stomach, bunching the fabric there as if it would engage his appetite somehow.

"Okay." She walked toward the door that led to the stairs that opened up to her kitchen. She clicked a button on the remote that was attached to the wall. There was a sharp beep.

"Starting to clean," a robotic voice spoke before the sound of two spinning motors of the brush drifted to their ears. The vacuum and mop combo pulled back from the dock and started to do just that.

Minato closed the door behind him, mentally making a note to remind himself to ask her to empty out the dustbin and mop pad into a bag before he handed the rest off for safe disposal.

"Do you like lasagna?" She asked him, facing the opposite direction.

"I do," his voice bounced off the narrow stairwell. His fingers were pressed against the wall with peeling paint to stabilize himself. If she noticed the heaviness in his voice, she did not comment. Just like she did not comment on his unwillingness to use the railing - verbally that was as her frown contained enough judgment. "Minato," he said barely above a whisper after not much deliberation.

"What?" She turned around to stare at him, confused.

"My name is Minato," he held her gaze, palms suddenly breaking out into a sweat.

This is not how I wanted to introduce myself to you.

Not even close. But seldom did reality line up with fantasy. What did they say about expectations and happiness? If one wanted to be happy, one needed to keep their expectations low. That was the only way to avoid being constantly disappointed.

"Oh," she said, turning back around. Her shoulders were stiffer than when she started cleaning.

He kept moving forward pretending to be indifferent to the sinking of his stomach.

She held a book in her hands. Her eyes were not on the two open pages in front of her. No. They were too busy following the rise and fall of his chest. His fever had not come back after breaking sometime around 5 AM. He was finally resting. After taking the antibiotic capsules with a peanut butter sandwich. She had checked his bandages and they were still clean so she opted not to re-wrap them. The less she did, the better it was. That had been two hours ago. Two hours ago he had fallen asleep, and she had settled into her accent chair with a book she did not read a word of. Her life was a mess and no amount of escapism would take her far enough to forget that.

Trust.

She was forced to trust him. A man from a verifiably seedy background. A criminal. A man tied to the Nara Clan - because why would someone in the Uchiha Clan shoot at their own and that too openly? It all clicked when he enlightened her on how his - and her - world truly worked. The Akatsuki controlled the money flow. The Akatsuki controlled law enforcement. It was not that big of a stretch to think they had lawyers - plants - in the DA's office. The mayor's office. Maybe even the Governor's. She had no idea how far this thing stretched out. Konoha was huge. Massive. Since the fall of the feudal era it was the one consistent city - metropolitan - that kept incorporating towns and small villages that neighbored it. Expanding like a virus. It spanned more than six hundred square miles, with land that was the furthest from the epicenter being sparser and sparser of buildings. It was the largest city in all the Five Great Nations. Was this how they got this way?

Did the five most notable and noble samurai families - the Nara, the Hyuugas, the Uchihas, the Aburame, and the Senju - retain their influence, wealth, and power by grabbing onto the underbelly of a society that no longer needed them? Meat shields. That was what they were. Historically since the conception of Konoha and even further back. Glorified meat shields to protect the public from atrocities that were a mix of myth and consequence. Did they catch on to reality and take what was once given to them freely?

They kept themselves relevant. They adapted. They refused to be pushed to the outskirts once they were cast aside.

Her lower lip was chewed raw in a too-visual representation of her unease. How foolish had she been? To end up in the situation she was in? She was not from a clan. As far as she knew, no one had the same shade of hair she did. No one. The Uchiha has the whole brass of the police force. How long would it be for them to put two and two together? She was the only pink-haired doctor in any of the five major hospitals on this side of the subway tracks. Surely they were going around interviewing all major clinics and establishments checking to see if anyone injured with a gunshot wound ended up there.

I made an emergency call.

And it had been more than long enough for them to trace her call down to a triangulation of towers - maybe even down to half a block.

I gave them my immediate location.

She had made their jobs easier for them. She had seen him destroy not only the body of her phone but he shredded her SIM card with the help of her shredder. It was grating the sound the poor motor made when the card fell through its teeth. It had complained the entirety of the time. She would not forget that sound soon.

Her heart was racing. She had missed work. Of her own volition and that too without notice. That never happened before. It was suspicious. It was no secret she took the subway - even if her exact stop was more or less well-known. If Blon-Minato, if Minato was to be believed, the man she had shot had access to police resources and a whole lot more as the nephew of the main boss. Did she just make it easier for them to find her by not going to work? What was the alternative? Being shot outside the place she worked? Or worse.

Have I aged out of the sex trade?

Who would even want a thirty-something doctor with stretch marks on the back of her knees and thighs and virtually non-existent assets on her chest? With a smart mouth with fine laugh lines on top of it. Her fingers curled around the dusty pink throw pooled at her feet.

What if for protection they force me to treat them?

Her eyes widened. She took in the stock of yellow hair. He was not a Nara. Even if he had the intelligence to rival them. They did not come in his coloring. Maybe he too had been forced to work with them.

Maybe he's a smuggler. A sex trafficker. Women. Children!

She did not know the sins he had attributed to his hands. He could be anything. He could be anyone. She did not know him. At all. He was handsome. He was charming. He was the type of person that women wrote love letters to, while he was serving out his days awaiting the death penalty for unspeakable crimes that she had years of treating under her belt. She knew the details of the long and hard road to recovery. Ino and her had lived the statistics. The disheartening truth of the lasting and sometimes irreversible damage that men like him caused.

Oh my God. I'm one of those crazies!

The ones that went on documentaries and stated without a shadow of a doubt in their brain-dead minds how they were the only ones who knew the true heart of the horrible criminal who was just misunderstood or even incarcerated wrongly. The plethora of excuses they had lying in wait to dump them all in the five-minute segment given to them to corroborate the claims made by the narrator that the killers were "charismatic" and "personable".

Wholly shit. Look in the mirror, Sakura. It's the pot calling the kettle black.

"You're spiraling," she spoke out loud to herself without realizing. It was when his breathing changed, that she realized at all. Sakura held her breath. She counted to thirty. That was when he finally settled back down into a deeper state of slumber.

Shit.

She regarded him. Really regarded him. He looked so fragile. Vulnerable. He was injured. She tugged on her bottom lip. At full strength, hell at mostly full strength, it was no contest. He would overpower her. He was taller, stronger. His body was packed with lean muscle. Not the kind that was purely for aesthetics. Something inside of her told her he was fast. Much faster than her. And there was the gun. The one she had given to him. Foolishly. Just as she had given her trust to him. Much too freely.

You idiot.

That was a grave mistake. One she could only hope did not come to bite her back in her ass - or pierce her between her brows. It did not matter how much she had come to abhor guns from her years working in the ER. It was the great equalizer. It would have kept her safe - the very thing he claimed to be doing.

He's behaving.

He was more than that, he was the perfect house guest - circumstances notwithstanding. But what happened when he had the mobility of his arm back? What happened then? Or when the swelling in his right hand reduced enough for him to pull the trigger - or wring her neck when he undoubtedly got tired of mouthing off to him? What then? What happened when he was no longer reliant on her? How did his hand end up so messed up in the first place? What good did knuckles do in a gunfight?

He took her phone and a dark part of her mind could not let that go. No matter how much the explanation made sense and was backed by reality. He had a burner. He mentioned a burner.

How did he get the burner?

She still did not know. But she knew this much, no decent, honest person had a burner phone. They had no reason to. She believed that in her bones. She lowered the book onto the table without a sound. Her movements were slow. She leaned forward, reaching behind her for the pillow. She held it between her hands, sinking her nails into it.

Ten or so minutes. That was all it took to smother someone to death. He would pass out well after five - where he would not pose any resistance. She chewed on her bottom lip. Five minutes. Just five minutes. She had to hang on and fight for just five minutes.

Three hundred seconds.

A reasonable enough number to count to. He only had one usable arm. If she was decisive and quick, she could incapacitate him and run. To where? She did not know. She had cash on her. Not a lot. A couple hundred ryo. Enough if she was smart. She had gas in her car. She could dye her hair. Hell, she could shave it all off. She had a blonde wig from her Halloween costume last year if dying and shaving took too much time. She could go home. She could pack up her mother and Cheddar and start over.

Mom and I have done it before, we can do it again.

She could get them out of Konoha and out of the Land of Fire. She always liked the ocean. Maybe they would start over in the Land of Water. She could open a clinic or a bookshop. Surely the Fire-associated Akatsuki would not bother with her there. Surely.

Wait…do they have a burn book or something…what did the documentary I watched a few months back call it? A b..bingo book?

She racked her brain to try to remember anything of use from the documentary of the low-level member who got out of the organization. His voice was distorted and his face hidden away. She was too worked up to remember what he said.

The guy didn't know anything! It was all useless.

Unless Minato was lying to her.

Harbor. His name literally translates to harbor. But then there was the connotation of his name, of what it implied. Safety. Shelter. A hub where people gathered for growth and exchange of ideas and goods. A harbor of safety. A facilitator of growth. All good things, objectively speaking.

But was he anything like his name? Objectively asking.

Is Minato even his real name?

She did not try to search him all because he seemed to know computers better than her. What if that VPN he installed was just the beginning? What if there was spyware that told him where she clicked and what content she viewed?

How could I be so naive?

She knew better. At least she thought she did. But clearly not. All those hours of research on how to stay safe in a major city as a woman living alone had gone to waste. She retained and utilized nothing. The large, dirty, pair of men's work boots outside her door could not help her with this.

She stared down at the rectangular, yellow, cotton pillow with white tassels, one on each corner. It matched his hair. Images of him covering her - shielding her with his own body - filled her mind. She had felt his heartbeat against her back. It had been keeping pace with hers. He was scared but even then, he thought of her first. He kept her alive. He did not let her die.

He could have. He could have used her as a distraction - a decoy - and made a run for it. He could have taken her phone from her and called for help - the same help that delivered clothes for him and God knows what else. She could have been an opportunity for him to save himself. But instead, he protected her.

Why? Was it just because I had a hand that could do what his couldn't?

She closed her eyes. His bloodied hand was on her head, his voice was telling her to stay down. The way his voice had cracked with emotion. The gentleness of which his bandaged hand had moved through her hair when he tried and succeeded in comforting her. How he held her…like he was scared he would shatter her if it was any more forceful than a gale of wind. How could she reconcile that man with the one she was constructing in her head?

What is wrong with me?

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Sakura let out a yelp. The pillow shot out of her hands, landing on the floor haplessly. She covered her mouth with her hands. She could not take back the sound. Her heart froze in her chest. Her wide eyes - with panic - darted to the door. She started to shake. She barely noticed Minato sitting up quickly. Awoken by the second strike of bone and flesh to wood.

Bang. Bang-bang.

The knocks were more impatient now. She looked at him, lost as he brought his finger to his lips.

A little late for that.

She curled her knees to her chest watching him move toward the door. Silently. His bandaged hand was around the gun. She covered her mouth to contain a whimper when the safety clicked off.

"Forehead!" A voice shrieked from the other side of the door. "I heard you in there! Open up!" The order was followed by three more pounds. And a kick for variety's sake.

Minato was looking at her. Sakura lowered her hands. "I-Ino?" She hated how weak her voice sounded. So pitiful.

"Who else calls you 'forehead', Forehead?!" Ino asked in exasperation, voice as clear as if there were not inches of solid matter and feet of space between them. "Don't think because I'm wearing Nobu's I won't kick in your door. I'll do it. You have until five. One," she started her countdown, not even pausing to breathe.

Sakura slowly got up, recognizing the threat as bonafide. Ino was a black belt in Judo. A belt she earned when she was sixteen years old. Minato moved from the door. The gun was hidden away again. She approached the door.

"Three," Ino called out irately. The tapping of her very expensive shoes was easily evident.

Sakura swallowed thickly. She glanced at Minato. He nodded his head. She turned the doorknob but not before plastering a smile on her face. "Ino," she greeted her red-faced friend.

"Don't Ino me," the blonde spat, her blue eyes never stopped moving. She took in Sakura's state of disarray from her messy, unbrushed hair, to her oversized sweatshirt and lack of pants, finished off with her pink, fuzzy, house slippers. "Your phone's been going straight to voicemail all day! You don't show up to work! And you have the audacity to 'Ino' me?"

"I'm sorr-hey!" She cried out at being pushed back into her house. She barely caught herself from falling on her butt. Sakura blinked in panic. "What are you doing?!"

"What's it look like?" Ino shot over her shoulder strolling in as if she owned the place. That was not new. Sakura should not have been half as surprised as she was. "Lock the door, Sakura. You live in the slums." The blonde set down the canvas bags she was holding in her hands on the countertop. She had made it all the way to the kitchen before Sakura could formulate half a coherent thought.

You need to leave, Ino. You need to get out here!

Sakura looked around the room like a crazy person for any flashes of bright yellow blond. For any traces of a male over six feet and on the other side of a hundred and sixty pounds - she was guessing.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Sakura," Ino peered at her with annoyance, hands on her hips and frown on her lips. "Why are you being so jumpy?" Ino reached for the door - the door that was much too close to the clinic where their bloody clothes and the smell of bleach lingered.

Do something! Stop her!

"I was there," Sakura blurted, flustered and completely overwhelmed and unable to think of anything on the spot. Nothing was hidden on her face. It was all laid out bare.

Ino's hands fell to her side. Her eyes went wide. "What?" She asked, shaky.

"The subway," Sakura blinked back the tears, her voice shaking not that different from the way Ino's had. "I was there."

"For…Sakura," Ino crossed the kitchen and the room. She wrapped her arms around the trembling woman. "Honey."

"I was so scared," she burned her face into Ino's coat. She breathed through her mouth. She could taste the lavender and orange from Ino's day-to-day perfume in the back of her throat.

"I'm so sorry," Ino held her while Sakura cried. "I'm so sorry."

xXx

"I damaged my phone," Sakura threaded her fingers with Ino's. A leg was curled in toward her, revealing the end of her black biker shorts. "It stopped working this morning."

"You told me you stopped picking up overtime," Ino's voice was torn between hurt and anger. "You should know better! Take your damn car if you're going to be working late!" She let out a frustrated growl. "Sakura!"

I'm sorry!

"I know," she pressed her face against the back cushions. Her eyes moved subtly to the door on the left. Her bedroom. He had to be there because there was no trace of him anywhere out here. Zero. Her eyes came back to the indignant blonde in front of her.

I need to get her out of here and fast.

But not too fast that Ino sniffed out the breadcrumbed deception. She had to be methodical in her manipulation. Subtle. And that took time to do well.

"God! How could I be so stupid to believe you?" Ino asked her point blank, face twisted in anger as it finally committed. "Are you trying to be hospitalized again? Huh? Are you trying to kill yourself?"

Sakura winched but ultimately remained silent. There was no winning or hopes of survival when Ino got like this.

It is my fault she's like this.

"Do I need to go downstairs to the clinic? Do I even want to know?" Ino looked over at the kitchen, only to look back when Sakura's fingers clamped around hers.

"It was just Hiro. He needed his splint to be taken off. Promise," Sakura smiled in what she hoped could curry her favor. Ino liked her… allegedly. "I'm being good. Amaya made lasagna. And she gave me bread. I'm eating."

"You're placating me," Ino huffed, settling on the couch in resignation.

"Yes," Sakura smiled again with a touch more warmth.

"Sakura," Ino's eyes glittered with concern. "Why didn't you call me? From Amaya's phone? Hiro's? Or that old bat next door?"

"I just needed to process," Sakura said with a sigh. She pushed down her guilt. "I still am."

"God," Ino rubbed her face. "You could have died."

"I know," Sakura bit the corner of her lip, pressing her canine tooth down nearly hard enough to draw blood. It was much closer than anything Ino could imagine.

"Your mom called me thirteen times. She was totally freaking out," Ino sighed heavily, her blue eyes critical. Sakura did not point out that Ino had no right to judge anyone for the same because Sakura was not an idiot - sometimes. "You'll need to talk to her."

"I know," she repeated, defeated.

Proof of life.

Ino pressed her soft pink lips together in something other than disapproval. "Later," she determined with a curt shake of her head. Her blonde hair swayed gently after the action had been completed.

Sakura offered her a timid smile in thanks, knowing full well she was just pushing the can down the very short road.

"And you didn't see anything?" Ino pressed, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"After helping that lady, I waited a bit to see if anyone else was hurt," her throat was tight in guilt but what was interpreted as fear. It bolstered the legitimacy of her woven half-truths and lies.

"Idiot," Ino grumbled, refraining from flicking Sakura on the forehead in a familiar communicative gesture that always got her annoyance across clearly. Insult to injury.

Must be really bad if Ino is going easy on me.

"But then I ran out and straight home," Sakura finished quickly as she did not want to push her luck.

"No one saw you? Like the shooters right? They're not going to ship you away to witness protection are they?" Ino squeezed her fingers. "Sakura," she pleaded for a respite from her overactive imagination.

"Nothing like that."

It could be exactly like that. Except it's the government and its goons that I need protection from.

"You need to stop watching so much true crime," Sakura admonished in a non-committal tone that undermined everything she had set out to accomplish.

"Rich coming from the woman who got me hooked on it," Ino said with an eye roll that could be mistaken for playful by the Ino-illiterate. She was still steeping in her anger. "Did you sleep out here?" She scrunched her nose as she patted the bunched-up blankets. "They smell funny. Did you change detergents?"

Leave it to Ino to rival a pig's sense of smell.

"I didn't sleep much last night," Sakura said the first fully honest thing to her friend. "I was napping when you came. That's why it took a while to answer the door."

"Hm," Ino sighed, pushing away the book from the coffee table without a second thought. "I'm staying with you. Until you feel better."

Why can't something - anything - be easy? Is that too much to ask for?

"Ino, don't take this the wrong way," Sakura began gently with a preemptive apologetic smile on her face.

"Here we go," Ino crossed her arms in preparation for becoming defensive - the level of which would be determined by what Sakura said next.

"I just need some time. This whole thing brought some things to light that I need to figure out. On my own. I'm visiting my mom in a few days. I'll get a new phone. We can call every day. I just need a little bit of a break. Things can't go on the way they were. I can't go on the way I was." She brought their hands to her heart. "Please, Ino. I need you to understand that I need this."

Please don't fight me on this.

"Fine," Ino said after some time had passed in ambiguity. Sakura had been convincing enough that Ino did not jump into a rapid-fire Q&A session that almost always ended up with Sakura being so tired and disoriented that she just gave in to whatever got Ino so worked up in the first place. Something about Sakura's hyper-independence and inability to ask or accept help gracefully. Apparently, that was bad.

"And to think I just thought you were just licking your wounds because you were rejected for the first time in your thirty-one years of life." She did not sound remotely guilty about that assumption or even airing it out in the open. It made Sakura feel marginally less bad about lying to her.

God, Ino. Keep that up and the person with a bullet wound is going to feel sorry for me.

"Thank you, Pig," Sakura smiled with gratitude despite her inward grumblings. "My request for time off was accepted. I'm not sure how long it's gonna take. Maybe a couple of months. Maybe much shorter. I'll keep you posted."

"You do that," Ino scoffed. "And find yourself and all that bullshit."

"So supportive, just like always," Sakura yawned, stretching her hands over her head - only to pull her arms back down quickly because she could not risk Ino seeing the friction burns around her elbows and the underside of her forearms.

"You better not get into micro-dosing or shrooms," Ino said with narrowed eyes, not thinking anything of Sakura's sudden squirrelly behavior. Ino paused, seemingly to consider her words. "Or actually do. I've always wanted to host an intervention. It would look amazing on my resume and I have the perfect outfit."

Sakura pushed air out of her nose loudly. "Thanks, Pig," Sakura drawled out sarcastically, complete with an eye-roll. Her eyes softened. "Thank you for coming all this way. But if you don't mind, I'd like to resume my nap now."

"Raised by wolves. The least you could do is let me stay until after dinner since I, you know, brought the food." She smacked her hand to her forehead. "Crap! The ice cream!" Ino bolted from the couch and moved with the speed a wildebeest would have trouble replicating - even if it was being chased by a predator - she let out a pained groan at the sight of the now-open container. "It's soup!"

"Did it leak on the counter?" Sakura sat up trying to see from where she was.

"No." Ino opened the freezer and shoved the two pints inside. "You owe me for this," she shot daggers at Sakura over her shoulder.

"Yes."

For this and so much more, Pig.

xXx

I wonder how much of that he heard. Probably all of it.

Ino was not exactly quiet and she had no filter. Or tact. Or decorum. Sakura pressed her ear against the door. She could not make out any sound that was not always there. Sakura curled her fist and knocked. The soft fabric of her pullover muffled the sound.

"Minato?" She called out tentatively, "she's gone," she added after a beat of silence. "You can come out now," she did not know what possessed her to add that adlib. She waited and waited. It was on mental second twenty-one that she lost patience. Sakura twisted the doorknob, caught by surprise it was unlocked. The door creaked open. She hesitated in the doorway. The room was dark. The curtains were drawn. Her eyes needed additional time to adjust. Her brain needed even more to make sense of it all.

From the doorway, she could see blond hair sprawled on her pillows. His face was without emotion as he slept peacefully over her covers. She debated, with her hand still around the doorknob between taking as many steps back as she had forward but the neon letters on her clock said it was late and it was cold. With a sigh, Sakura walked into the room - feeling every bit of the imposition it was - she stepped around the black duffle at the foot of the bedpost that he must have grabbed on his way into hiding. Sakura grabbed the maroon throw from the edge of the very same foot of the bed, pulling it up over his long frame. It stopped well short of his chin, at his navel. She stopped herself from soothing the creases out of the plush fabric. Sakura slipped out of the room - leaving the door ajar - only to reappear several minutes later with a large tray in her hands. It was covered with a cloth. She set it down on the nightstand closest to him as quietly as she could. She stepped further away from the bed by one step.

She took in his face. He appeared so normal. Innocent almost. Like a nice guy. No more menacing or threatening or dangerous than the man she got her bagels, coffee, or ice cream from. Trust. He had a face that someone could trust. She was staring. She knew how creepy it was. Somewhere in the corners of her mind. Sakura sighed. She walked out the door, not letting it make a sound in her consideration.

Minato counted to thirty. He blinked open his eyes. He turned his head to his right. He could smell the aromas of food. The pungent spices that were toasted and the oil that coated spoke to its deliciousness. Take out. Noodles. Beef.

Are you trying to kill yourself?

The question blared in his mind on a loop essentially the moment Ino had left - not before Ino begrudgingly promised to honor Sakura's plea that she not tell anyone at work or otherwise that Sakura was there at the time and scene of the shooting. Which also included Sakura's mother apparently. As in, the woman was alive. And Ino said that she would tell her that Sakura got pulled into a double shift and that was why she was not responding to her phone calls, to which, Sakura thanked and assured her that she would call her mother soon.

Are you trying to be hospitalized again?

His lips pressed into a bloodless line. He had lost any and all remaining appetite.

xXx

She punched the round couch cushion trying to coax it into a shape that was comfortable, or at the very least cooperative. She had been at it for ten minutes. Maybe it was too much of an ask. The pillows were not new but it had been a while since she had lounged on them for more than five minutes at a time. Sakura exhaled air through her nose, cheek pressed against cotton dyed in a marigold yellow. The TV backlight covered her face. She stretched out her legs that did not touch the other armrest, she yawned out of boredom and not tiredness - no more than usual anyway. She pushed onto her palms, elbows straight at the sound of the door opening. He stopped in his tracks when his eyes met hers.

Frozen. The both of them were for seconds that neither chose to actively notice. Nothing that would deter their focus from the other was given any chance of consideration. She watched him, watching her, wordlessly.

"Are you okay?" She asked him, slipping into a persona that she understood. One that she could rely on.

Do you need something?

She stopped short of asking because the question felt too open-ended and even more ridiculous than asking a man who had been shot if he was okay.

"I'm fine," Minato answered with a smile that was too small and too short to mean much beyond politeness.

Sakura retracted her legs, sitting fully upright, she ran a hand to smooth the back of her head. A jolt of static had her pulling her fingers away. Her attention was nowhere near the commercial on the screen about full-body deodorant.

"Are you hungry?" She tried not to think about how much she sounded like her mother with one simple sentence.

"No, the food was plenty. Thank you." He lingered in the space between the hallway and the living room. In neither space. Essentially hovering.

Why are you being so wishy-washy?

Where was all that confidence he was projecting up until his nap was interrupted? It was making her nervous. It was making her uneasy - even more uneasy to see him so hesitant.

"I should check your bandages," she removed the decision from his hands all the while not offering him outright to join her. She pushed up to her feet. Her joints creaked. She gestured to the other end of the couch. The blankets he had used were bunched up on the accent chair. Still unfolded.

She stood at a distance - not having moved from the other end of the piece of furniture - as she waited for him to get situated without what she hoped was the pressure of time. His movements were slow and ginger. They were a far cry from just hours earlier when he moved to the door to inspect what they had believed at the time to be a threat. She remembered just how quickly the air had left her lungs while her heart went haywire. Her palms had gone clammy. Her thoughts were sporadic. Her flight, fight, and freeze was triggered. She did not know how much longer she could do this before something shut off for good.

He cleared his throat. She blinked back the thoughts that were swimming in her eyes. He was staring at her. And she supposed that she had been doing the same on a surface level, even if she was looking past him.

"I'm going to take your bandages off now," she took the necessary three steps to cross over to his side of the couch. The coffee table dug into her calves. She used those muscles to push back the table. It rolled a few inches, giving her more room to operate within.

She found the joint - where the bandages had been taped together - without much work as it was more or less right where she had left it. She clicked her tongue touching the lamp on the end table; it filled with light. A naked Raiden light bulb. Warm yellow light that was intended to come off as inviting.

Should have gone with daylight. Why did I try so hard to reinvent the wheel?

"I'm sorry about you having to lie to your friend," Minato's voice was soft as he leaned off the back of the couch so she could undo the bandages without having to contort herself into various configurations. Neither pretended to notice the way he went out of his way to not touch her in any way as he did so. Even if it meant prolonging his discomfort.

"It had to be done," she answered without color or much thought. "I can't have her getting sucked into this." Her eyes were on the rolls of bandages that she was working to gather so she missed the flicker of something across his eyes. Nothing much was lost. She would not be able to read him anyway. He was a book that she did not know the dialect of. Right in front of her but completely indiscernible.

"You're right," he said the words that no one was hanging on to hear. "She'll be safer this way."

"We'll see," she paused to regard him openly. Without a mask. Without prejudice. "Is this really safe?" She asked in light of his reflective silence. His eyes were darker than she had ever noticed before. "Is this really safe?" She asked him again, preparing herself to ask him as many times as necessary to get answers. Anything that could pass as an answer. "Is it, Minato?"

Did I just mark my best friend? Did I condemn her?

Ino referred to hotels below four stars as motels. She was not designed to rough it out in the conditions.

His hesitation was palpable. She was suspended in it. Her stomach floated up where it had no business being.

"She'll be fine," he answered, staring her dead in the eye, and for a long moment, she wondered if she had accidentally asked her questions out loud. "You did the right thing telling her not to come back. You did enough."

It doesn't feel like it.

She could not bring herself to present her counterclaim. Opposite but not equal to his conviction or confidence.

"I'll keep you safe," he said the words that resonated more with him than they did her for she did not know him. "I need you to tru-"

"Trust?" She asked with a scoff, she shook her head in bitterness. "How can I trust you when I don't know you? You won't tell me anything. Anything at all!"

You gave me history. What good is what happened when something, something I don't understand, is happening to me right now? How could you ask me with a straight face to trust you?! How?

From where did he get his audacity because she was in sore need of some.

"Sakura," he leaned back into the cushions, his tongue held back by his lips. A vault. She bit back her frustration. "The other option is a Nara safe house," he presented in a monotone, with a blank expression.

Safe house?

She stopped short as her brain considered the option that just came to light - in the warm, yellow, light of the Raiden bulb.

"There will be guards there around the clock. There is less chance of your loved ones getting caught in the crossfire," he spoke professionally, detached from any emotion that strayed from impassiveness.

"What does that mean?" She asked, leaning forward. "Exactly."

"You'll be safe," Minato met her in the eye. "But you would owe the clan. And that is not a good situation to be in."

She paused thinking of what came next to let his words - his statement - settle in. She believed him. She believed him completely. In this, at least.

Trust. A fragile trust that could be broken by a gust of wind - like a singular silk shot in a spider's web.

"Is that what happened?" She asked, the bandages felt heavy in her hand, making it a challenge to stand on her own two feet. She set them aside on the end table over the white marble base of the brass table lamp. "Did you owe the clan?" She searched his face. Over and over. For anything: benefit of the doubt, confirmation of guilt, indifference. Instead, she found nothing. No change. She lowered her eyes. Her jaw was set in the line of frustration. She pressed her teeth together to form a cage around the pink muscle that was quick to craft words that cut. Words that she usually ended up regretting, from past experiences at least.

She leaned closer still, inspecting the synthetic sutures. "There's no puss. No discharge. No tearing," she narrated what she saw more out of habit than anything. She tried to separate Minato the patient from Minato the criminal in her mind. "Your skin," she prodded the swollen puffy mess. "Is no more discolored than it was yesterday. I'll keep an eye on it as it's early but I don't think we have to worry about necrotic tissue at this time." It had not been twenty-four hours yet. She could not flush the site with water or cover it with Vaseline. Both things would help with the tightness. "As it heals you'll find it growing more and more itchy. Don't scratch."

"I've had stitches before." His hand went to his abdomen; a thin jagged scar hidden behind his large palm.

Of course, you have. Just another day…just a standard occupational hazard huh?

"Hm," she hummed to herself in what was agreement. But she had committed to being difficult - within reason. Her eyes tracked each and every scar she saw. The open and visible like the one across the first of his abs. To the ones hidden underneath dark ink.

She was not one to get a tattoo - she was too indecisive for that and had an aversion to needles - but after years of working as a doctor she had seen all kinds; from tattoos done by a novice with a cheap gun bought online to really talented artists. And it was art. The tattoos that lined his arms and upper chest were breathtaking. Intricate. There was so much to look at. She could spend hours and still find new strokes, lines, and shading. The linework was fine. Precise. Clean. Whoever covered him was probably the best she had seen. The scars coated in ink were hard to find. She had to really look for them. The scarred skin did not detract from the cleanliness - the sharpness - of the image; from the story being told. The ones her eyes kept coming back to were the bright, vibrant orange koi that was over his shoulder. A break in all the black. Stark. Detailed with yellow scales that became golden under the light. It was as if it shimmered. A waterfall - denoted with swirls that it climbed only to emerge on the other side as a full-fledged dragon whose whiskered snout ended just half a centimeter before the line that no ink crossed. Dark and coiled around his muscles so that every time he flexed them, it rippled. She found herself wondering if they brought him what they claimed to represent: good fortune. Because all she saw was the dips, valleys, and erosion of a very hard life.

"My fate was sealed long before."

Her eyes found his and lingered. Sapphire collided with emerald and it was as if time had stopped. She did not pry. She did not dare to pry. Not when he was looking at her like that; like no one had ever looked at her before. She stood over him feeling completely exposed. Because it felt like he - his intensity - was boring into her soul, seeing her for what she was. Seeing her in a way she herself did not even know. That innate.

This is crazy. You're being crazy. Get a hold of yourself, Haruno.

"I'm going to bandage you now. It's aired out enough," she said abruptly. She cleared her throat, opening the drawer on the end table. She found the sterile pack of bandages she had stowed away there.

"Do you need to call anyone?" His voice was missing the same grit it had moments prior. How many moments exactly that she knew not of for she was hesitant to consult a clock, lest she find yet another reason to question herself.

"My mom," Sakura held one end of the tape as close to his neck as she could. "Hold this please." His hand was already moving to cover it before she finished her request.

"My colleague brought a burner. I have it set up for you," Minato watched her extend the bandage down his chest on a diagonal. He grimaced when she tucked it under his arm.

"Sorry," she murmured out of habit. "A burner?"

"Hm," Minato nodded his head slightly. "Don't pick up any numbers you don't recognize. I've already entered mine in your contacts. It's just a precaution. Better prepared than sorry, right?" He asked dryly, lips pulling into his half-smile that did not hold meaning.

"Okay," she was almost done. "It's not too tight?" She asked not knowing exactly why.

"No."

She taped it sealed. "I'll go get you some ice. Is the heat pad inside?" Her eyes drifted to the door of her room.

"Yes."

"Okay," she patted his hand out of habit. "Let me see," she wiggled her fingers in a 'give me' gesture. He did not pose resistance. She undid the bandages. She eyed the split skin and bruised knuckles. She kept the question that burned in her mind to herself. It was not her business. "Does it itch?"

"No."

"Are you lying?" She lowered his hand to the pillow that covered his lap.

"Just a little," he answered.

"Don't go anywhere," a careless slip of her tongue. She did not linger to gauge his reaction. She padded over to her room. The drawn curtains caught her eye. She missed the sun. But he had asked her to keep her windows closed and herself out of sight. Especially the balcony. She made her way to the bathroom. She opened the medicine cabinet, finding the small container of Vaseline. She caught her gaze in her reflection. She paused. Her fingers traced the dark lines under her eyes, the circles. Her face was sullen but she was not sure how much of it was real and how much of it was all in her head. She looked terrible. Awful. So bad she wondered if she had actually died on that platform, while huddled behind an overturned vending machine. And only her corpse had been reanimated - being pulled by some faceless, heartless puppeteer - while she somehow retained enough of herself to be aware.

God. I'm insufferable.

Sakura sighed, she closed the door of the medicine cabinet. She filed out of the bathroom, her eyes moving around the dark room. She turned on the table lamp. It did not take long to find the long white cord attached to a light blue mat. She unplugged it from the socket, nearly bent in half trying to get the three prongs to disconnect. She let out a grunt of triumph. She rolled the mat and pressed it to her stomach.

His side profile was exposed to her as he peered at the screen. He tilted his head in her direction. She deposited the mat and the Vaseline on the end table. Sakura pulled the coffee table closer. She sat at the edge, accidentally brushing her knee with his. His hand was where she had left it. She opened the container and began to coat the cuts and holes with the jelly. Using one hand to scope and the other to apply.

"What's that?" Her eyes moved to the white rectangular device in his hand just long enough for him to gain context.

"A phone," he answered cheekily.

She huffed, shooting him a look. "You know what I mean."

"A burner," Minato explained, his smile still there.

A rather new development.

"Really?" She leaned back, straightening her spine as she corrected her posture. "No way."

"Were you expecting a flip phone like it's 2005?" He asked, teasing.

"No!" She looked away, hiding her flushed cheeks. She finished wrapping his hand. She gave it back to him without fuss.

"I, um," Minato chuckled only to grimace when reminded of his very new injury. "I set it up for you. Don't install apps on it if you can avoid it. The more you do, the more chance you run of it no longer being secure. If you notice it getting slower, dump it immediately and let me know. I'll get you a new one." His expression was serious - commanding. Forceful. Assertive. In control. "Burners are like cattle, not pets. Don't get attached." He held it out for her.

Sakura lifted both hands and she wiggled her fingers showing him the greasy residue. The slick sheen against milky skin. "How about I trade you a bag of peas for it?"

"Deal." Minato smiled.

Sakura sat up and turned around before she could do something stupid - like smile back. It would only encourage him to be even more charming. Because it was effortless for him when he was not in his own head.

xXx

She sat back on the couch with a sigh. She pushed her lips to the side, head swimming and thoughts whirling.

"Did your mom pick up?" Minato asked her as he munched on a freeze pop. Blue. the kind that would leave his teeth blue and tongue purple. He did not insist but she saw him eyeing it. On his shoulder rested an ice pack. He was back to twenty minutes of ice for every thirty minutes of heat.

"She did," she was slightly less wound up now after hearing her mother talk even if she received an earful for the ages. "Thank you for the phone."

"It was the least I could do. I did break your first one," he bit off a chunk of the blue sugary ice.

Like a sociopath.

"When you put it that way," she sighed. Her show - reruns - was still on. "We can watch something else." As long as it was not the news. She was not ready to commit to that level of reality just yet.

"It's okay," he stated without distinction to what it was. "I didn't see this season. I stopped watching after Spencer left."

"Hm," her brows shot up in surprise. Sakura lifted her legs to the couch, tucking them to the side. "It's really not the same without him. Shame too, Liza and him would have been happy together."

And so freaking hot. Six seasons of all that tension gone in a cliffhanger of a season finale. He didn't even say bye to her. The would-be-goodbye-kiss would have been scorching.

"Liza's better off with Chase," Minato stated as if it were etched in stone - fact.

Sakura made a face. "You're delusional," she smoothed the lines of her brow with a tired hand. "Next you'll tell me that Maya is actually a friend, not a frenemy."

Minato snorted. "No. Maya is batshit crazy."

Sakura pressed her teeth together to hold back a laugh. She brought her arms to wrap around herself, not willing to pull the throw that was in the neutral zone - the cushion between them - toward her.

"I'll figure it out, Sakura," Minato's low voice filled the gaps left by the commercial break. "This is not forever."

I want to believe you.

She blinked slowly. She did not know what to believe anymore. They watched the episode in a silence that was too thick to even attempt shattering without serious preparation for the potential fallout.

Chapter Text

Minato smoothed his blond brow with uniform directional strokes of his thumbnail. He ran his tongue along the top row of his teeth, tasting the lingering minty freshness of the toothpaste. His teeth were cleaned and his face was washed. His lightweight, scentless moisturizer was applied. His nighttime routine was completed more than a couple of minutes ago. His day was ending with a snag. A major one.

"I can't do that," he said, breaking his silence after some time. "I can't give you what you're asking."

There was a sigh in his ear. "Then you understand my predicament," the low voice said.

"I do," Minato's teeth pressed together in the punctuation of his sentence. He breathed through his nose. The carbon dioxide contained his disappointment. He could not provide the man - Kiba - so he would not be given what he sought. Quid pro quo.

"Contact me if there is a change."

Minato ended the call. He understood. He would not be the one to initiate contact again unless Minato had something of interest. He slipped his phone into his pocket. He turned off the tap, counted to three, and opened the bathroom door, clicking the light off on his way out.

xXx

The metal doors with thick, see-through, scuffed plastic panels opened. Rubber pulled apart from rubber with a restrained bemoan of temporary estrangement. He registered a pair of dark eyes on a blurry face. That was it. That was all the time he had. His hand went to his waistband. Slower than he needed it too. Much slower. The liquid that spilled from his hands coated his thigh. Everything was so slow. He saw the tea spheres seep into the dyed silk that was darker than any color found in nature. A black void. A steady build-up of pain. A flash of light. The smell of smoke and gunpowder. Then another.

Bang. Bang.

Minato blinked his eyes open. He stared at the ceiling, breathing shallowly. The back of his hand was pressed against his damp forehead, fingers curled in a loose fist. The line between reality and memory ran. He was not sure if he had seen the small scar on his assailant's face or if he had imagined it. It all happened so fast. Too fast. They knew exactly where he was. They planned it perfectly. All to catch him when his guard was down. And they had succeeded.

He had gotten careless. He had deviated from the plan. And now everything, everything, was up in the air. It had all gone to shit. He was not blind - on the contrary, he saw it all - the hesitation, the way she forced herself to interact with him. Guarded. Everything about her was guarded. She did not trust him because she wanted to but she had to. It was a reluctant - begrudging - alliance. That was all that it was. She was scared. She was in danger. And he put her there. It was unforgivable what he did. And yet, he found himself hopeful - looking to her to grant him some form of elusive forgiveness.

A shard. A fragment. A glimmer. Something. Anything other than nothing.

The soft clicking of metal against ceramic pricked his ears. A single canned light was on. It was far enough away that if his eyes were closed it would not have impacted the quality of his sleep. - had he been asleep. He turned his head. There she was, under the light with her head bowed and a foot resting on top of the other with her leg slightly bent; stirring away at the liquid in a blue mug.

A sweet dream.

Her eyes - the one thing, the first thing he had noticed about her after the shock of her unusual hair color, that kept pulling him back for more and more and more - were focused on nothing in particular. She was ruminating. She did it often. He had learned that about her before all this. Without warning she could disappear off to her own world, leaving everything behind. He wondered where she went. What she thought about; what she saw, what she heard, and what she deemed worthy of her attention and time.

Why would she tell me?

It was a small miracle - or an act of cruelty if all this ended up being nothing but false hope - that she did not hate him but that also meant that he could never be fully honest with her. Because if he was…she would hate him. There was little doubt in his mind of that scenario.

But that was always the plan…wasn't it?

He closed his eyes. He lowered his hand. He moved his body slightly. Just enough to rustle the blankets but not aggravate his shoulder which was taking a rest from its near-constant reminder that it hurt. The spoon stopped clicking against the inside of the mug like he had hoped it would. This time, when he opened his eyes, hers were waiting for him.

"I didn't wake you, did I?" She asked in a soft voice to give him some cushion as he acclimated to the land of the conscious. From the tone, she had already accepted the burden of guilt.

"No," he cleared his throat to push the grogginess from his voice away. "I was just resting my eyes."

"Hm," she regarded the ceramic in her hands as it sat on the countertop; steady and stable on the solid surface. "Do you want some hot chocolate?" She was already reaching for the silver handle of the white cabinet. "And before you get too excited, I'm just going to microwave it."

"That seems to be a theme," he sat up slowly, blinking away the lingering images in his head, the small of his back pressed against the curved side of the armrest. He had yet to see her eat a vegetable that did not come out of the plastic heating box.

"I'll take that as a yes," she kissed her teeth and spoke into the open cabinet. "We're outside of the no-dairy window," she paused momentarily. "Unless you want it with water? Just seems kind of sad."

"With milk is fine."

He watched her pull an identical mug from the cupboard, and move to the fridge to fill it with milk. It was placed in the microwave as she promised. Uncovered. She stood in front of it monitoring the rotation, keeping an eye out for splatters. She was still holding the spoon she had used in her hand. Her arms were crossed over her chest. All that was missing was the tapping of her foot up and down to complete the picture. The heat of her gaze did not, in fact, speed up the process. He was too tired and too unaware to know if her impatience said more about her as a person or more about his presence and her avoidance of it.

But she was the one to offer…unless she's just trying not to be rude.

Because that could be as good a reason as any, she was confounding. A conundrum of contradictions. The microwave dinged and she was the only one to react - to change their current state. A white packet was torn open from the top and the contents dumped into the glass. The spoon moved around in circles until there were no more lumps. He assumed.

"Sakura's way?" She asked him, distractedly.

His brow furrowed. "Hm?" He blinked in confusion.

"Do you want it Sakura's way?" She asked him for slightly more context. "That usually means with marshmallows, whipped cream, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles. I'm out of chocolate sauce."

Oh.

"No thank you," he declined politely because even just one of those things sounded like way too much. It was then that he noticed the pack of mini marshmallows - rainbow - on the countertop, which was held together with a large, plastic, blue chip clip, as well as a small red container which he assumed had to be the sprinkles. He could not read the label from where he sat.

It's already bad enough that I'm having sugar after five and before seven.

Five in the evening and seven in the morning that was.

"Your loss," she said with an unbothered shrug. She walked to the fridge - her side profile visible to him for just the time the door was closed. The black door completely swallowed her whole - shielding her from his sight. She popped her head out, pulling back to close it with her hip. It was the movement and settling of the fabric of her long oversized nightshirt that made him realize she was not wearing a bra. He lowered his gaze, feeling every bit of a creep that he knew he was. The distinctive pressured hissing of the whipped cream being forced out of the canister went only longer than he anticipated. The silence that replaced it was thick. Loud. In yet another contradiction between what he believed to know and what was being experienced on the contrary. The creak he had come to associate with the fridge door opening was followed by the seal of the door with its counterpart. Everything was as it once was. Slippers moved across the kitchen floor until they were muffled by the carpet.

"Here you go," a blue mug appeared in his line of sight - nearly under his nose.

"Thank you," he wrapped his fingers around the top as hers were on the handle. It was hot but he did not drop it. He used his knee to stabilize it while he transferred his hand placement to where her fingers had been.

Sakura sat down on the accent chair, carefully. She pulled the decorative pillow across her torso deeming eye contact with her - any part of her - decent once more. And he was never one to waste an opportunity. One foot found the rug first as he repositioned himself. He faced the blank TV, cup - filled nearly to the brim with too-hot liquid to drink - in hand.

"Growing up when I couldn't sleep my mom would give me warm milk. It worked every time," Sakura's lips moved against the edge of her mug. The stubborn steam was felt against the tip of her nose.

He listened intently, his gaze fixed on the brown liquid. She had turned on the table lamp in addition to leaving the lone canned light on. The edges of the darkness did not touch the couch or the chair, at least not the parts that he could see.

"It stopped working somewhere along the way. So I improvise." Her bottom lip was subjected to torment by her top teeth.

"Sakura's way?" He asked in a voice too tentative for him to claim as his own.

"Hm," she chuckled hollowly. "During school's winter break, my family would go to the 'Skate in the Park' temporary ice rink they set up near the tree lot. When I got too tired or grumpy or cold to continue we would swing by this shabby stall. A classic. All they sold was hot chocolate. With marshmallows, whipped cream, sprinkles, and chocolate sauce. 'Happiness in a cup' they advertised. I always insisted on getting the large. It was as big as my head. I could never finish it. But they would get it for me anyway knowing that." The whipped cream dusted with pink and red heart-shaped sprinkles she had piled high on her mug was starting to droop, dripping off the edges, leaving a traceable trail. "I guess I'm just trying to replicate some of that happiness. That childhood magic."

Those feelings of wholeness.

He added in his head. He wondered if she knew that she was wearing the remnants of her tears. She sniffled before lapping up the tip of the melting hill with her pink tongue. Not carefully enough as some of it remained on the corner of her pink mouth. A pink so different from both the neon hearts and her pastel hair.

He eyed the remote because it seemed safer than where his thoughts were headed. He grabbed it. The space filled with a cool light before the pictures started to move. With a sigh, Sakura settled further into the embrace of her chair.

"I like this episode," she commented as the cop tackled the perp into a pile of trash bags on the sidewalk.

"Me too," he brought the mug to his mouth. The liquid did not scald his mouth despite him not testing the temperature beforehand in uncharacteristic hastiness.

"I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that Mutt's such a lousy shot. All three are expected to survive," Sasori said through barely moving lips curled with his disdain. Almost as if he did not have a hand in it all.

That explains why three came after me.

Minato ran his hand along the lines of his brow. The slight squinting of his eyes made the fine lines noticeable.

"No word yet on the ones you saw," the redhead's nose wrinkled in the early stages of a snarl.

"They'll live." He had not beaten the first two all that badly. Just enough to make sure they would be out cold and out of the way. And the one that had opened fire would have to be an idiot if he died of a bullet wound through the hand. As far as Minato was concerned, if it came to pass, the idiot would have no one but himself to blame.

The Uchiha have more than competent medics.

The beaten silence signaled that there were no other updates to be shared. "Tell Hoshigaki I need those rushed."

Sasori turned his torso, jaw pushed all the way to the right as he regarded the garbage bags Minato had thrown back there haphazardly. "I'm not an errand boy," he grumbled under his breath.

You're whatever I need you to be.

"My ears must be ringing," Minato tilted his head and used his index finger to press against his ear. Sasori rolled his eyes. "Because that sounded like a complaint."

Sasori's jaw loosened. The scowl on his face, at the sight of the bloodied laundry that would be furnace food, corrected itself before he turned back to face the front of the car. He stared past the length of the long, glittery silver hood.

"Bring a less flashy car next time." Covert. All of this was to be covert. And Sasori was too old, too experienced to be making these rookie mistakes despite the most recent evidence. Minato reached for the door.

"It's over ten years old," Sasori griped as he was unable to help himself. "You need to relax."

"What I need," Minato's lips pressed together to the extent of his displeasure. "Is no more mistakes."

"It's on me," Sasori pressed his hand to his chest. "All of this is on me. I'll clean it up."

"Hora," he said his name sternly in a scolding tone. Sasori immediately ducked his head out of habit, he tried to play off the action by scratching the back of his head.

Do what you're told, as you're told, and do no more.

The mantra that his handler - his boss - drilled into him did not need to be said. Minato had passed it along to Sasori and even Kiba. Maybe he had unrealistic expectations that all of that effort was not wasted - that it did not fall on deaf ears.

"Fine," Sasori relented with a sigh, not willing to push his luck. At least Minato was back to communicating through sentences with him - well, mostly. "I'll tell Hoshigaki." He started to feel around the inner pockets of his dark-washed jean jacket. "Before you go."

Minato's eyes migrated from Sasori's face - the man was stubbornly avoiding his gaze - all the way down to the girthy rectangular box he held out. A box he recognized immediately. Air left Minato's nostrils audibly. He took the pack of smokes and tucked them into his hoodie pocket. He pushed open the door and left without another word or glance back.

Sasori lingered longer than he should have in the alleyway; filling the cabin of the vehicle with a sigh in time of the engine sputtering to life.

She was warm. She was surrounded. Her limbs felt heavy. Sakura let out a sigh of indecision. She did not know what to be or what to feel. She did not consult the neon numbers on the clock on her nightstand. What was the point of time when she had nowhere to be? When there were no expectations of her. Without lifting her head, she felt around - groping blindly - for something that was very much still foreign. She flopped onto her back bringing the phone to her face. She frowned.

It's surprisingly lightweight for its size.

She had seen burners in all her procedural and true crime shows but when seeing one for the first time in real life, she could not help but be surprised. Sure the burners on TV looked no different than the everyday smartphone but a part of her thought was just artistic license taken by the directors and producers because in honesty were flip phones still around? It just made sense from a practical standpoint for shows to use regular phones and call them burners.

But I guess it makes sense…if someone pulled out a bulky flip phone it would be a dead giveaway. It's suspicious.

She ran her hands along the smoothed edges. Her fingers tapped the middle of the screen to reveal a black background with a few apps. It was not all that different from the phone she bought her mother. It was simple. It had the necessities. GPS, call, text, notes, and contacts. What set it apart from her mother's phone was a lack of VideoTube or any streaming service app. It was beyond basic. It was practically prehistorical. A part of her felt cheated if she could be honest with herself for a moment. There was something that would have added to the whole thing with having the nostalgia of flipping a phone closed to end a conversation.

Maybe it's not the things but a simpler time that I miss.

She inhaled through her nose deeply. An unfamiliar scent filled her passageways. Sakura turned her head. She reached for the pillow next to her. She brought it closer. She gave it a cursory sniff.

Ino was right. He has a scent.

Even despite only having her cleaning products available to him, the aroma on the pillowcase was distinctive. Clean. He smelled clean. Naturey. Like mint. And something more. Maybe pine? What he did not smell like was just as enlightening: smoke. She held the pillow to her, hugging it as she blinked at her ceiling.

I can't believe I entertained smothering him…or that I thought I could pull it off without drugging him.

Her bottom lip was held hostage by her teeth as she thought.

That reminds me…he never stepped outside for a smoke break. Smokers need smoke breaks. It's compulsive. Smokers need nicotine. His hands….

His hands were clean. There was no discoloration on his nails. She had not found a lighter anywhere in his jacket pockets. She had not seen one in her home. There was a distinctive lack of nicotine patches on his torso too from what she remembered, if he was on the road to quitting. Nothing was adding up with the picture - the facade - he presented to the world.

If he doesn't smoke, why does he carry a cigarette behind his ear?

Surely it was more than just a bizarre fashion statement that she did not know about. She was not that out of the loop with the youths. Vaping was king amongst them - much to her dismay that big tobacco had managed to rebrand itself and make a comeback.

Ugh. I need a drink.

She pretended not to notice the irony. Or was it hypocrisy?

What time it was meant next to nothing to her now but she could not pretend to be completely indifferent to the construct. She was in limbo - she was in a near-constant state of waiting for time to pass. Waiting for the police or the Uchiha to come to her door to finish what they started on the subway platform in the Tani Station. Waiting for her old life back. Waiting for Minato to walk out of her life forever. Waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. She was constantly waiting. Worse than limbo. She was in purgatory - left to the discretion of her own twisted thoughts.

"I should get up." She should face the day. Despite knowing what she should do, she remained with her back against the soft mattress, plucking away at the corner of the pillow that did not smell like her as if she was de-feathering a chicken.

"Shit."

She set the pillow down in frustration, vaguely in the direction where she had uprooted it from. She swung her legs off the bed with a scowl fixed on her face as she padded over to the bathroom without stopping to shove her feet into her slippers. She slammed the door not caring - hoping - that he would hear her. She set about brushing her teeth aggressively enough to make her gums bleed, glaring at her reflection as if she were the one who was at fault for all of this.

It was only when she completed the 'at-home' portion of her morning routine, that she emerged from her room, fresh-faced in a different set of home clothes and with hair brushed and braided over her shoulder. Sakura peeled the purple sticky note from her door.

Out. Will be back soon.

Sakura's closed-mouth growl sounded before she crumpled the paper in her palm. It was terribly unsatisfying. She shoved it into the pockets of her velvety periwinkle shorts and pulled the hood of the matching hoodie over her head. She cranked up the heat a couple more degrees. Her slippers dragged across the hardwood floors. With a dramatic sigh only designated for her ears and her ears alone, she threw herself on the couch, muttering under her breath at the neatly folded blankets and stacked pillow that rested on the accent chair.

Why did he have to be so considerate?

It would make it so much easier to see him for what he was if he was more of a jerk. Even if only a modicum more. Because what kind of heartless criminal folded up a blanket and set it aside?

He's not heartless.

Sakura pulled on the drawstrings of her hoodie, closing it around her face. She kicked her legs up, back and forth, back and forth. Back-there was a buzzing against her thigh, coming from the inside of her pocket. Not even a second later the sound of a key sliding into a lock filled her ears. Sakura hastily pulled off her hood. She smoothed the top of her hair, trying her best to appear as a normal - mentally stable - person who was lounging casually, as a normal person did when in their perfectly normal home on a perfectly normal day.

It's me.

The text she was peering at read.

A head with shaggy but also spiky yellow hair poked through the door. But it was the pungent aroma that had her interest. She was up and on her feet before the door closed. She stared straight ahead, eye level, making her way to her target. She did not even wait for him to take off his shoes - his fancy, expensive loafers looked ridiculous with his casual garbs, especially his navy sweats - before she picked the cup closest to her from the cupholder in his hand. She poured it down her throat, eyes closed, immediately. Not caring if she burned everything in her mouth.

I needed that.

"Coffee," she said with a breathy sigh, shuffling away and toward the small table. She ignored his chuckle from the doorway along with all the accompanying sounds - the crinkling of a brown bag filled with sugary goodies, or maybe even a bagel sandwich if she was lucky, the clinking of her keys as they found their place in the decorative bowl on the table by the door - just like she ignored his amused utterance of "Good morning to you, too."

Keep your greetings to yourself, punk. I'm not here for your entertainment.

She tapped her fingers against the table impatiently. Only she was. She was stuck here. More so than him - a fact that she was painfully aware of. The turning of the deadbolt pierced her ears.

xXx

"Hello?" She knocked on the door, face nearly pressed against it. "Minato?" She called out after only the sound of running water reached her ears. She was bored. She had left her laptop in her room. On her bed. She figured listening to some music or watching cat videos while she painted her nails would help rectify some of the dourness of her self-inflicted mood. She wanted to keep the use of her burner to a minimum - like only for emergencies and phone calls minimum.

Why couldn't I think of this sooner? Like before he went in for a shower.

It would have been helpful. But reruns of her show were on, and she had yet to learn that there was such a thing as 'too much of a good thing' - the show and the sleeve of saltines she had mindlessly consumed. She was still wearing some of the crumbs and salt, she was sure - because she was now over it. For a little while at least. Maybe a small break would help. It was not like she could go for a walk or something. Her options were severely limited especially when she did not feel like cleaning. Her stomach was too queasy for that.

Just go. Be in and out before he notices.

"I'm coming in," she announced before she could talk herself out of it. Sakura turned the doorknob, hearing the latch disengage, but she did not pull it toward her. She waited for a second or two, for what exactly she was not sure enough to label. She slipped into the room. Her hand found the light switch. She blinked to let her eyes adjust to the change.

With quiet steps, she made her way to the bed. She could see the silver corner of her laptop on a bed she had not bothered making - which in hindsight she should have because it meant that he saw the lumpy comforter and the wrinkles in her sheets. The wrinkles that ratted her out if the sounds of her tossing and turning muffled through the door had not already done so. With her back turned to the bathroom, she reached for her computer. She almost had it secured in her grasp when the opening of the door pulled her attention.

An immediate and sheepish apology was ready at her lips before she even started turning around. "Sorry I was just-"

Oh my god!

"S-sorry!" She stammered, going straight to red-faced - jumping the cute pink stage that she did not mind all that much altogether - as she snapped her head back in front of her and covered the left side of her face with her hand.

Oh my god! Kill me now, please.

"Why are you apologizing?" Minato's cobalt eyes peeked through the towel thrown over his head.

Are you serious?

"I-I-I." Her ability to form coherent sentences was gone in the sparks of her short-circuiting brain. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath all the while she stared at the picture on the wall - the one of Ino and her after the first year of their residencies. "I should have waited until you were done."

I should have knocked louder. And because…because….

"It's your room. It's your home," the blond said in a bored tone, very matter-of-factly.

Why didn't you lock the door?! Why did I turn on the light?

If she had not, he would be backlit and she had yet to determine if that would make things worse or not. Like a freaking angel in a painting. All that was missing was a pair of large, white wings.

Wouldn't that be something?

"Yes," she dragged out the word as she was not sure how to proceed really. She stood still when all she wanted to do was bolt and then maybe drink enough until she overwhelmed her brain cells into forgetting. "I didn't see anything." It might have been more convincing if her voice did not squeak. It was pitiful. "Um," she cleared her throat again. Roughly. It was left feeling so dry. All good decision-making had been left on the other side of the door that she breached with reckless abandon. She kept with the pattern. "Why are you naked?" She asked because what more could it possibly hurt to ask, as curious as she was mortified. In her defense, she had knocked.

"I was in the shower," he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

And it was.

You're not even in the shower anymore! Towels! And there's something called towels.

She bit her bottom lip - clamped down on it - before her mortification could be translated into sound. A whimper. A whine. A groan. It did not matter all that much.

Minato lowered the white towel to around his neck, his eyes on the back of her shoulders. "I only had one towel. My hair is still wet," he elaborated calmly. Unfazed. Unbothered by his nudeness as if it were perfectly normal to have a conversation while being as naked as the day he was born.

Not that he has anything to be self-conscious about. Like. Anything. At. All.

"You could have asked for more towels," she willed herself to breathe - to not let the erratic nature of her insides be betrayed by any of her outward characteristics. "I have plenty of clean towels. There are so many towels in the hallway bathroom cabinet."

She had white ones, red ones, blue ones, green ones, plush ones, thin ones, big ones, small ones. She had all the towels because she took her mother's stance that you can never have too many towels to heart. That was why she got permission to install the extra storage in the bathroom at her own expense. For her towels. Towels she had.

Too many towels to be in this situation.

"I didn't want to be a bother."

I have bad news for you then. I'm bothered! I'm very bothered.

She closed her eyes to aid in the ignoring of the intrusive thought - a notion she refused to acknowledge. If she was any less worked up, she would have detected the teasing note in his voice. She would have. Maybe.

"No bother," she was impressed with herself that her voice did not immediately spike up a couple of octaves. And the fact that she did not start to fan herself.

When did it get so hot?

She could not even blame steam from the bathroom for disrupting the ecosystem because there was none.

"Just let me know in the future. Or take what you need." The latter part of her statement slipped out before she could parse it through several filters.

Why don't you ever think before you open your big, fat, stupid mouth, you idiot?!

She could hear him dripping onto the floor. Or maybe that was just her overactive imagination again. She could not verify with her own eyes what her ears thought they were hearing. The thought she was ignoring had brought friends. Like-minded, loud friends. She was outnumbered.

Is this what it's like? Losing your damn mind?

Why am I still just standing here? Why haven't I left?

"Okay," he said agreeably, pulling her back from the beginnings of grappling with existentialism. Because none of this was feeling like free will. At least on her part.

"Great." She blinked at the smiling faces. So young. So naive. So free.

Everything is just great. You're fine. You're really fine.

"Sakura?" His voice did something to her insides - on top of everything else. The way he said her name…it was not good for her. It was the opposite of good for her.

"Hm?"

"Did you need something?" He was facing her. She could tell by the audio quality of this voice. There were no obstructions between him and her back.

Does one really need all that much? What do I need?

She stared blankly. For a moment. For two.

"From the room?" Minato elaborated, addressing her tense, tense spine.

"Oh!" Sakura chuckled. She reached for the laptop - nearly falling onto the bed on her stomach - snatching it. She pulled it to her chest. "Just this," she said as if he could see what she was clutching.

"Okay." He was rather open with his amusement this time. Not shy at all. "I'm going to get dressed now. Unless there's something else?"

"N-Nope! All good here," she said quickly, laughing. High-pitched and airheaded. Oh-so annoying. And unable to stop. "Everything is great." Her laptop groaned from the pressure of her grip. "Super great." She bit down on her tongue until the pain of the act reflected on her burning face. "Just great," she drawled on and on. "Great." This time the utterance was punctuated with a head nod.

So, so, so great.

"Great." Minato's hand came to grip the door jamb. He leaned slightly forward so he was further in the room without ever moving his feet. "Oh and Sakura?"

The sudden increase in intensity had her skin pricking to the point that it would either crawl away or simply melt off her skeleton. Whichever was more convenient.

"Hm?" She asked, weakly, lips pressed together in a bloodless line; a seal of containment.

"It wouldn't have been a problem if you had," he smiled at her as a parting gesture before the door closed softly behind her, finally giving her permission to breathe. Or pass out. Whichever was more obtainable.

What. The. Actual. Hell.

She bolted from the room, not wanting to be there for another second to give the universe - or the warden - any further ideas. She completely forgot the nail polish. It was okay, her hand was too jittery for it anyway.

xXx

She chewed thoroughly through the last of the slightly sweet and unfortunately stale dinner roll. They had maybe one more day before they turned as hard as rocks. Her throat was parched. She tugged at a strand of hair from the top of her head, playing with it. Sometimes she got a little too careless and ended up ripping it from the root. It was not all that bad. The pain grounded her. The little jolts of it. Even if it was fleeting. She could hear him breathing. And that in and of itself was too much at times. It was rather pathetic. Almost as pathetic as the two main leads in the buddy-duo cop show they were watching - from opposite ends of the couch. They had their hundredth argument seemingly about the direction the case was taking but that was just an excuse. She ducked both her arms under the throw blanket. It was merely a coincidence that his right arm had moved to rest across the top of the couch not even seconds prior to her doing so.

I should join a monastery. Iron has great views.

Surely the Akatsuki did not have reach or plants there in the tall, snowy mountainsides. She hated being cold but even that was welcomed over this. Because Minato's proportions were ridiculous. His fingertips were practically grazing her earlobe. She did not know that people could have arms that long. She was exaggerating. Obviously. Today had been awkward. Incredibly. She jumped every time he was suddenly closer than she was expecting, stammering apologies. She had even bowed once in her fluster to his hand, finding the small of her back to nudge her out of the way of a drawer on his pursuit for a fork because apparently that was easier than just saying "Excuse me." And the worst part was, he was fine. He was totally fine! He was operating as if she did not see him naked - mostly naked - she had looked away before she really saw anything. Allegedly.

If she did not occupy herself for more than a couple of minutes, her mind took the liberty of thinking of backstories as to why his tattoos did not extend beyond his hips. Maybe it meant he did not reach a high enough rank or something. That he had more tests and tribulations to overcome. Maybe he had more to prove. Maybe he just did not know what to get. Because clearly, he did not mind being seen so modesty was out of the contention. She tapped her nail against the curve of the armrest.

It wouldn't have been a problem if you had.

He had said. Calmly. Confidently. Confusingly. Did he want her to see him naked? Did he do that on purpose? Did he want to see….

Get a grip, Haruno! It's not like he's the first partially - partially because you didn't even see-see anything - naked man you've seen! You're a doctor for crying out loud!

Some days - like today - she seriously doubted her competency. Who in their right mind would make her a doctor? Let her see patients? Just what were they thinking?

Sakura chewed on her tongue, irate, as Becca - the female lead - stormed off after accusing Becker - the male lead - of being blind.

She's just mad she saw him at the bar with a pretty redhead.

And Becker being the clueless idiot he was, ran after her. Like always.

What a doormat.

"Everything alright?" He asked in his low, smooth voice.

"Fine," Sakura answered in a huff. "Why?" She added when her curiosity got the better of her - it always did because she never learned. Ino believed she had an addictive personality and that she - Sakura - was more than a little bit of a masochist - in Ino's not-official-but-professional-all-the-same-opinion.

What does she know anyway?

"You're making faces at the TV. Like you're trying to burn it to a crisp," he noted with a smile on his face.

"This is just my TV-watching face," she retorted, not giving him the satisfaction of eye contact. "And it would stop being a problem if you stop looking."

"So there is a problem?" Blond brows pulled up. He tilted his head back at the sound of someone doing a burnout in the distance. He only returned his gaze to her face when it grew too faint to detect. "You alright?" He asked in a low voice. Gentle.

"Fine," she dare not wipe her suddenly clammy palms on the throw or her shorts. He would catch the action. Her heart was thumping in her chest. It sounded just like gunshots.

You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.

She swallowed; thankfully, Becca was screaming at the top of her lungs so the sound of her weakness was not audible. At least that was what she told herself.

"Okay," he turned back to the TV with something complex settled in his eyes.

Great and now they're kissing.

She lowered her face to her curled fist that was propped against the armrest. She admired the woman's skin, wondering how much was makeup and how much of it was just a solid skincare routine. The camera was right there on her face.

She's so pretty…wait…why are they taking off their clothes?

She stared at the screen, perturbed. How did they go from screaming at each other, calling each other all kinds of names…to this? In a matter of seconds? How did it go from being so heated to being so…so hot?

How does that work?!

She froze when Becker's hands trailed up Becca's back, they found the claps of her frilly black bra. A bra that was totally not realistic for an active detective to be wearing on the job. It provided next to no support. She had just been running not even an hour ago - full speed - while wearing a button-down top that she was practically spilling out of. He undid the first set of hooks. Her eyes widened.

They wouldn't.

Oh, but they did. They did dare. The bra slid to the floor. The camera panned to it. A close-up revealed the rose design in the dark lace. Becca's low, breathy moans filled the small living room. The camera panned back out.

"I have to pee!" She said much too loudly, shooting to her feet. She nearly impaled her knee with the corner of her coffee table in her desperation to get away from the box where the noises were coming from. She grabbed the doorknob and yanked open the door without a single thought in her mind other than getting the hell away. She stared at her deranged-looking reflection under the stark white light that flattered no one.

"Is that what they pass for TV-14 these days?!" She asked herself, scandalized. Never had she felt so betrayed by this show. Why did everything have to be edgy and steamy all of a sudden? What happened to just catching bad guys? Why did everything need a smattering of filth?

She closed her eyes only to snap them open. Because in the realm of her mind, a blond man tormented her. A very naked blond man.

Why is everyone naked?!

She groaned, grabbing her head in her hands. Her bent elbows balanced on the edge of the rectangular vanity. "What is wrong with me?" She asked the universe or whoever the hell was listening. Anyone but herself. Anyone but him. She cursed her body and the hormones that were all out of sorts. She cursed the stage of her cycle that made even a plank of wood seem attractive if it had nice enough googly eyes attached to it and a wig.

Where the hell did I leave my charger for the batteries?

The wayward thought asked in rebellion because they would need time to collect enough juice to be of any use.

"Kill me now," she complained dramatically - conveniently forgetting that just like the tap she forgot to turn on before her little episode, the blond sitting just feet away could hear every single word and sound she made.

The full weight of his focus was immediately on her when she emerged from the bedroom to stand out in the open. He noticed everything. From the faded blue jeans and black pullover she wore. To the two-toned, striped pink fuzzy socks on her feet. The red crossbody bag against her hip. Even the jacket folded over her bent arm. The question - the only question - was translatable from his expression alone.

"I'm going to see my mom," she spoke with totality. There was zero room for negotiation.

"No." So he did not negotiate, he outright denied.

"To hell with your no. I overrule your no with my no," Sakura shook her head. Her stance became more argumentative just as her tone had. Her feet were shoulder-width apart. She was bracing, he realized, for a back and forth. Emerald-colored eyes blazed with defiance; the promise of being unagreeable and unpleasant if it meant getting her way. "You can't stop me."

He could. He very easily could - it would disturb her how easily he could. It did not do well to test him. He did not rise from the couch as that would surely escalate things in the wrong direction. The direction she was trying to force.

"It's too dangerous," he said levelly - reminding her - trying to appeal to her sense of pragmatism because she had yet to display any self-preservation skills he could reliably count on.

"If I don't go, the only danger I run is my mom not having enough food," she countered without a centimeter of give. Zero. "I have been more than patient."

It's only been three days.

Not even. Was that all it took for her to forget the horrors of what she lived through? Of what she saw. Of what she had to do?

You almost threw up when I took the gun back.

Her face had turned green. Sickly. The same woman who had not batted an eye at seeing the amount of blood he displaced and gone weak in the knees at just one glance of the black plastic.

How could she forget that so easily?

The allure of freedom was truly great. The desire for it superseded the fear for one's life. That was why so many ended up leaving witness protection even when they understood that they would likely be killed by the very entity they requested protection from.

"If that is what you're worried about, send the groceries through one of the food order apps," he posed what he believed to be the logical solution.

Her eyes widened. She slapped her forehead. Her mouth hung open in shock. And it was then and there he realized he said something very stupid. But it was too late. He had sprung the trap. Now all he could do was sit back and hope she cut him loose. Or grew bored - or tired - of the idea and simply walked away.

"Gee," her voice dripped with marvel from biting sarcasm. "Why didn't I think of that? All those hours, miles, traffic, trouble, and time that could have been saved not just for me, but my car, and the environment! Thank you, Minato. Thank you for making my life so much easier," she gushed. Her hands were folded and her face much too bright with her contempt.

He was missing context. "I don't see the problem," he openly communicated the disconnect between his suggestion and her over-the-top reaction, especially after yesterday when she avoided him like the plague after his poor decision to emerge from the bathroom with nothing but a towel on his head. He had heard her knocking. But he could not hear what she was saying, so he asked her to speak up. Only to get no response, so he had turned down the water and listened - hastily drying himself before opening the door only to find her there in the room.

Maybe it's too soon for us to laugh about it.

He could tell she did not say the first thing that came to her mind. Maybe not even the third. She was seething in her indignation. That was harder for her to hide if an attempt was made at all.

"My mother," Sakura said with an eerie calm - completely manufactured. Or maybe she has cycled back to calm which was very, very bad. "My mother is paranoid. She thinks the man down the street who walks his Yorkie goes through her trash and spies on her. She thinks cars that make the wrong turn and double back and casing her house. She thinks the neighborhood children are trying to lure her cat away from her," she took in a deep breath. "She will never, ever accept groceries that show up on her doorstep. She'll give herself a heart attack, convinced that they were sent by someone to poison her." Sakura paused to stare him down with unforgiving eyes - angry for making her divulge this private information. "That is the problem," she stressed. "Do you understand now, Minato?"

He did not have an answer for her, not one that was satisfactory anyway. It was not his business. It should not have been his business.

"On Monday," Sakura's voice was noticeably softer, perhaps impacted by his stunned silence or out of longing for what she had taken for granted that she would give anything for - to have all the problems she had on Monday back. Problems that probably did not seem so big in hindsight. "I promised my mom I would stop by. She is expecting me. I need to go. If I don't, there's a real risk she has an episode that requires hospitalization. And maybe just maybe she'll manage to call the police and report me missing before that happens," she was pleading with him now. He saw the vulnerability under the layers of moxie and bravado. She was begging him to understand.

Are you trying to kill yourself?

Ino's question to her etched itself in his mind, for him to carry with him for the rest of his days indiscriminately of just how many or how few more there might be.

"I can send someone I trust," he could not bring himself to look her in the eyes. There was too much hurt there. More than enough to squeeze his throat noticeably tighter.

"No," she shook her head. "If you need to come with me to feel better about the situation, then so be it. I can wear a wig or hat or something. You could stay in the car."

"No." This was not an episode of Scooby-Doo. She did not understand the seriousness - the gravity - of the situation. "I'll go." The hesitation on her person was palpable. It was everywhere he looked. The words that wanted to tumble out of his mouth - the ones asking her to trust him - he held back. They meant nothing to her. "I'll make sure she gets the grocery. I'll shop for it myself."

The gears in her brain churned and in real time he could see the change in her. Her stance was becoming more receptive - malleable.

"I'm not asking for anything that I'm not willing to do. My colleague would be staying here with you."

Stop being stubborn. It's a good compromise. Neither of us is happy about it.

"I guess," Sakura began distractedly. "I could call her, tell her you're coming," she was biting the side of her thumbnail and her eyes were anywhere he was not. "I could tell her I got pulled into something at work," she thought out loud for his benefit. It saved her the trouble of having to tell him the story for them to keep straight. "It could work," she clarified with a frown. "There's still a chance she calls the cops on you and files a missing person on me."

From the way she said the words, he was unsure if she was joking or not. He simply did not know enough to make a call.

"You'd have to be in and out. You're just doing me a favor. Don't stay for dinner. She'll offer. The longer you stay, the more questions she will ask. She wanted to be a lawyer growing up. She would have been better suited to the interrogation department of the Konoha Police Force," Sakura eyed him up and down. "She'll eat you alive."

"In and out," he said with a curt nod - actively choosing to be productive and not focus on what felt like a dig. Normally it did not bother him - he might actually prefer it - to be underestimated. Other people's opinions of him were not his business and he did not care to make them his but Sakura doing the same caused a pit to form in his stomach. He did not care for this feeling of inadequacy. "No to dinner," he added with earnestness, without even a trace of reluctance.

I can and will do it,

"I'll get you the list," Sakura threw her hands up in the air in acceptance of defeat. She turned to face the fridge to rip off the top half-sheet of paper that was attached there via the magnetic backing.

"Okay." His hand was already moving to click the last number he had called. "Hora," he spoke into the receiver. The call was picked up between the first and second rings. "Get here. Now."

xXx

Getting in and out of the car was the hardest part - the most painful part. Driving he could manage without much noticeable change even if he usually led with his left arm when doing so in the past. Minato adjusted the dark sunglasses on his face. He tilted his head down. The bill of his black baseball cap covered his face from the cameras lining the street-front shops. He moved slowly down the ten or so steps that led to the basement of the brick building.

Sakura's mother's house was an hour's drive one way from her apartment. Mebuki was not expecting him for another two. The address she had only said verbally and he has promised not to write it down or share with anyone. Anyone other than his GPS but that was out of necessity even if she had given him a rundown of what exit to take and what turns to make. She had assumed his point of origin incorrectly. But like him, she had a vague idea.

He ignored the faded sign that read "No loitering". He tapped the rust-colored door. It was reinforced with steel. No windows. No peepholes. His fingers tapped against the outside of his thighs. The lock disengaged. He heard something being slid before the hinges creaked. The door opened. He caught it with his right hand, its weight, and momentum vibrated throughout his body in a taunt of just how exposed and vulnerable he was.

It slammed closed behind him. The floor smelled of a citrus cleaner. Artificial and strong. His nose burned. Breathing through his mouth did not help. Minato walked to the nearest barstool. He pulled it away from the stainless steel table with his foot. He leaned against the edge of the table. He faced the stairs. And waited.

It was a short one as the sounds of a lumbering frame descending down the steps filled the still room. The low electrical hum and the ticking of the clock were drowned out by labored breathing. A rough face with bags under his eyes and a wild mane of long white hair glowered at him.

Nice to see you too.

"How are you, kid?" The man asked roughly, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Never better, Professor," Minato answered with a smile. It reached nowhere near his obscured eyes.

Jiraiya snorted. "We were taking bets on whether or not you died."

"It will take more than three Uchiha to do me in," Minato tipped his cap as if accepting great praise. "Thanks for your vote of confidence."

"You don't need it. I taught you everything you know," Jiraiya kissed his teeth as he leaned back against the wall of the entry. "Take those damn things off. How can you even see anything?"

Minato lowered the sunglasses from his face, tucking them into the front of his hoodie. JIraiya's eyes were on his immediately - checking them for bruises, swelling, traces of bloodshot, and signs of impending and determined death. The tall man relaxed marginally when he came up empty-handed.

"You look terrible," Jiraiya's voice carried with a gruffness that masked his relief. "I can't remember the last time that I saw you not in Konan's pants." It was probably the same as the last time Minato was down here in the bunker - the war room. His home away from home. A place he came to when he was in trouble. Minato did not get in trouble often.

"Getting shot in the shoulder has me reassessing my priorities," the blonde sighed, unfazed by Jiraiya's unique way of framing things with his lexicon.

"So you did get clipped," Jiraiya shook his head. "It's impossible to separate rumor from truth out there." The frown he wore was severe. It overpowered everything. "I'll keep it to myself."

Minato nodded his head in silent thanks. If his condition was confirmed, it would only invite more of the lesser clans or particularly motivated individuals to try their luck for notoriety - to make a name for themselves. The Killer of the Yellow Flash. Flash Container. The Slayer. There was no shortage of nicknames he could think of for the person who managed to reunite him with the departed. Something he would not mind so much - especially in the past - if he knew it would not cause them a great deal of sadness. And then there was the matter of his balance. If he was to see them again - and his heart ached every day, some days so badly that it took everything to leave his bed - he had more work to do. Work he could not do if he was dead. It was as simple as that. He had to stay alive. He had to stay untouchable - more legend than a man to discourage even the thought of a hit. A kill was a kill. It did not matter if he was "damaged goods" prior. His reputation was still intact which meant his circle of protection around her house was still unbreachable. For now. Because nothing was permanent or a guarantee.

"How are you really, Minato?" Jiraiya was the one to break the silence that had built and built with each second that was burned through by mental cycles that never stopped moving. Maybe that was why he was tired all the time.

Minato rubbed the back of his neck. His back was not happy with him - her sofa did not provide the support it needed - but there was little he could do. He added it to the growing list of grievances he could not address right now. It would take too long to try to get up from the floor in the event of an emergency. And that was putting aside the risk of Sakura tripping over him on her way to the kitchen in the middle of the night when her eyes were only partially open, because she was still half-asleep at best or sleepwalking at worst, to the jar of cookies she kept on the countertops. It did not matter if she was fully, partially, or minimally conscious she never forgot to lock the door. Maybe she did have some self-preservation skills after all. They told her to stay away from him.

"Pissed," he finally settled on the holistic self-contained summary. He kept it short but far from sweet.

"That seems to be going around." Jiraiya's dark eyes travel along the room. Past the pool table, the darts board, the beat-up but still comfortable leather recliner, the fridge stocked with booze, and the poker table shoved against the corner.

"I need information, Professor. On an Uchiha with a hole in his hand," Minato did not let his former teacher stroll long down memory lane, a double standard that he did not have the time to look into at the moment.

"Assuming that you didn't have enough time to ask him his name in all the excitement - how do you know it was an Uchiha?" He asked without looking at him, his tone was conversational - dangerously close to dismissive. Jiraiya's personal beliefs on revenge were simple: don't bother. It was a dark path that no one survived. Not in any meaningful way. Everyone lost.

"They were cocky and arrogant," his tone made it clear he did not believe he needed to say anymore.

Jiraiya scoffed. "That will do it." He walked over to the billiards table. He pulled a pole from the rack on the wall. "Getting you a burner so you could find your feet was one thing. Don't get it twisted. I'm out of the game, kid." He began to apply chalk to the end of the cue in repetitive, leisurely strokes. The balls were already prepped. The one good thing about Nawaki. He always left the table ready for a game. He lined the end of the cue to the white ball. "So stop trying to pull me back in," he retraced the faded line in the sand.

Minato picked up the ball with his bandaged hand just as Jiraiya was coiling back for his strike.

"Sakura was there."

Dark eyes snapped up to meet his. "What?" Jiraiya asked with more breath than voice, frozen in place. "Pink Sakura? Dr. Sakura? That Sakura?" The sharp set of Minato's jaw was all the confirmation he needed. "Minato!" Jiraiya rose to his full height. The tip of the cue dug into the palm of his hand. "I was wondering what you were doing all the way out in Tani," his eyes were narrowed. "She's a civilian. I taught you better!"

I know. Believe me, I know.

"I don't need a lecture right now, Professor," Minato's hand curled around the ball.

"You do. You absolutely do," Jiraiya disagreed vehemently. "What happened to waiting?" He asked. "What happened to the plan?"

"It went to shit," Minato matched his heat. Standing toe to toe with the taller man. "I can't go back. I can't change the choices I made - the ones I didn't make, Professor," he said with the calm he was known for. "I can't go back. I need information so I can move forward."

I need to get past this.

"You plan on killing him," Jiraiya did not mince his words or reserve his judgment.

"He saw her. She's marked." A vein in his neck became visible as he said the words. "I need to make it right."

Or die trying.

"Shit," Jiriaya rubbed his forehead, transferring chalk onto it unintentionally. The man pressed his lips together into a stern line. He stared at the picture on the wall - right above the entry, before the steps. "Who's with her now?"

"She's safe," he answered cryptically much to Jiraiay's brow's annoyance. His navy eyes continued to maintain a level of pressure that was best described as coercive.

"So Hora then," Jiraiya rolled his eyes to the ceiling, contemplating the cracks in the paint and whether they were a cause for concern or not.

"Please don't start," he said with a sigh. It was hardly a good use of time.

"Kid," Jiraiya's dark irises narrowed with the full weight of his disdain. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, something is off with that one."

"You've never liked him." He rolled his shoulders slowly. The repetitive nature of this discussion was grating away at him. There were only so many dead ends he could encounter with grace.

"I'm just telling you how I see it. He's unstable. Did he run off to chase a fix only to land you in one?" Jiraiya asked pointedly, voice gruff and his nostrils flared. He did not think he needed to ask Minato to open his eyes to the cost of Sasori's indiscretions.

"He's clean," Minato uttered with tightness that went beyond just lip service. "He made a mistake but he's solid. I trust him."

Jiraiya let out a snort. "You have a blind spot for him. You always have. Since the day he threw himself into the mix."

Minato could neither argue nor deny. Instead, he glanced up at the clock somewhere behind and over Jiraiya's head. The white hair man stood still for another moment, observing before he shook his head and sighed.

"When have I let you down, kid?" Jiraiya asked, lips pulling into a smile that was for show only. He was about as happy as Minato was.

"Thank you, Professor," he set the ball back on the table, lining it right where it had been. Not a hair too here nor there.

"You can thank me by cleaning up this mess quickly. Shikaku's pissed. Angry enough to skin and wear you to send a message of discouragement. Rihito has his hands full running interference," he bent over to move the cue for better angling. His dark eyes saw past the brightly colored balls.

"I'll be sure to send him flowers along with my regards." Minato had no sympathy. Especially not after "running interference" every time Rihito was in his uncle's crosshairs. It happened too often to count, especially when they were not quite children but not yet men. But what could he do? Rihito was Shika's favorite. So he had to look after his baby cousin for him.

"Basketball tickets," Jiraiya said with an eye roll, he struck the ball sending all the other scattering when they collided. "And sake for the hag. Expensive. She's been complaining that I'm unbearable to live with as of late."

Done and done.

"You're going to set back my timeline," Minato's lips tugged into a smirk despite his words and tone. It was automatic now, the habit of negotiating. Even if it was just for appearance's sake.

"What good are plans? Life is meant to be lived." Jiraiya moved to the other side of the table. "Now I know you have better things to do than stare at my beautiful face."

A chuckle left Minato's throat. "Only barely." His parting words hung in the air as did the hollow thud from when he tapped the wooden edge of the table with curled knuckles.

Jiraiya tried not to think about the path Minato's feet were leading him. Dark and twisted. He would never be the same. Perhaps Jiraiya had been a fool to think that Minato could go as long as he did at the rank he held without earning that particular label or achievement. A permanent mark that was carried on his soul, one that would be easier to hide and pretend did not exist but the recovery…the recovery was less predictable than the tattoos that lined his body.

"Be sure you know who is pulling whose strings, Minato. Without a lick of doubt," Jiraiya offered his advice into the space that was no longer occupied by the Nara's Blond. The door slammed closed. Locking itself. The somber man continued his game. Heels clicked down the stairs all the way until they came to a stop behind him. A small but warm hand settled onto his chest.

"Who was that?" Her sultry voice was music to his ears. The most beautiful sound even when she was producing not-so-pleasant frequencies - which was more often or not the case given his tendencies to put his foot in his mouth or leave his dirty, balled-up socks everywhere.

"Who else," Jiraiya grumbled, pausing to snake an arm around her waist, pulling her closer.

"Only one other person can get you this worked up," she trailed the tip of her painted nail from his jugular notch, his throat, over his lips, to flick his nose, earning herself a scowl. Her lips stained in a soft pink pulled into a self-satisfied smirk.

"He was being stubborn," Jiraiya grumbled with irateness; he did not need to dig too deep to dredge up. "You get old enough that the kids start thinking they know everything. I'm practically a talking fish mounted to a wooden board. A relic of long gone wisdom."

The woman patted his shoulder in a consoling gesture. The level of effort eroded with each pass of repetition of this very button being pushed. "Did he need to be seen by me?" She asked eager to change the subject, slipping a hand into the folds of his dark kimono-style top. Pressing her palm to the tattoo she knew was still there. Faded with both time and age - its and his own - but discernible all the same: a balanced vertical vajra contained in a perfect circle. The same one that rested between her shoulder blades.

"Don't take this the wrong way, princess, but assuming he doesn't completely mess this up, he won't be needing you again." His dark eyes glittered with something far from innocent. He had faith in his star pupil. He did teach him everything he knew, after all.

Tsunade's face scrunched in lines of offense. She scoffed in indignation at the prospect of being replaced. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" She asked, brow haughty.

"Exactly what I said." He bent down to kiss her on the lips, grabbing her face with his chalk-covered hands. He squeezed her cheeks together a little too roughly. While the other forewent the cue and tracked down the curve of her back to give similar treatment to her rear.

"I'll shave your head bald if you call me hag again." She twisted his nipple in retaliation for the remark and the chalk. Because despite sharing a life with him, she did not share in his pacifist philosophy. At. All.

Jiraiya cursed himself for splurging for audio on the new CCTV cameras that were installed just last week. It would do him good to revisit his own advice, it seemed.

"Don't touch that!" Sakura snatched the small succulent in a round pot from his hands.

Sasori did not react, letting her have her plant back without a fuss. His purple-painted fingers found their next object to hold captive. He frowned. "Why do you have this?" He asked her in a bored tone, a small plastic trophy dangling from his index finger. "When you're not the 'World's Best Karaoke Singer'." His face barely changed as he started to spin the trophy around. "Unless you think you are?"

Just who raised you?

She wanted to ask him, pointedly. Instead, she glared as menacing as she could to no avail. "Give me that!" Sakura reached for the spinning memento that was never anything other than a joke.

Sasori set it back where he found it - instantly losing interest - to move on to the next thing. Sakura followed after him, huffing and puffing and red in the face.

This is who he would have sent to Mom's house?

If the answer was yes, Minato was a few bulbs short of bright. Maybe as many as five. Or he had horrible judgment. Or he was punishing her. Or some combination of.

He's probably cackling to himself. The jerk!

It made her feel better to know just what he was about to walk into. He deserved every minute of Mebuki Haruno being unleashed on him out of principle alone.

An eye for an eye punk.

"You're abrasive and argumentative," Sasori carried on his matter-of-fact deadpan, reminding her with his words that he was very much still there. Inside of her apartment. Touching all her things. Making stupid quips every now and then. Judging.

This is what Cheddar would be like if he were human.

"Nothing like you presented yourself to be," Sasori delivered the rest of his burn without color.

Sakura bristled, filling her cheeks with the air of her indignation. "You're one to talk, as in that's all you seem to be doing. Now." She missed the quiet, brooding persona. The persona she has associated him with. How wrong she was.

What I wouldn't give to be ignorant-Sakura again.

Sasori's lip twitched. The action was too brief for her to determine if it was in a grin or frown. He moved past the fireplace mantel where all these things had been housed.

"I don't see it," Sasori muttered to himself, running his fingers along a baseboard. He rubbed the minimal dust between his index finger and thumb.

What is he on about now?

"You don't see what?" Sakura asked as she straightened the orientation of the small gold trophy so all the lettering was facing out and easy to read.

"You weren't meant to hear that," he said with an annoyed sigh. Like he was annoyed that she was here in her home, specifically. His brown eyes swept the room for the umpteenth time. She was beginning to really get agitated. "I might just have to kill you if you continue to be so noisy."

She halted all movement. She could barely make out his silhouette in the glass of the picture frame in front of her. He was behind her, looking through the contents of the drawer on her end table. The one between the couch and the accent chair. Her fingers curled into a fist.

"Just make it quick."

Sasori blinked. He turned his head to look in her direction. A book was held in each of his hands. He did not even bother to straighten the curve of his hunched-over back. "Come again?" He asked and for the first time, boredom was nowhere to be found on his person.

That got your attention, huh?

"If you're going to kill me all that I ask is you make it quick," Sakura brushed the fine dust from the top of the mantle. She could see it gathered inside the painted white between the red bricks. "I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of jumping at every loud sound - a trash can being kicked over by kids on bikes, a car backfiring, a firework going off, a train horn, a bird hitting my window. I'm tired of seeing the same face every time I close my eyes, while I wait for him to find me. I'm tired of being stuck in these same walls. I'm tired of having no control over my life. I'm tired of being so scared that I'm nauseous which only makes me angry. Only to come right back to being scared. I'm tired of living like this. I'm tired. I'm done. So if you're going to kill me. Just kill me."

She looked at him, eyes bright with challenge while frustration rolled off of her, pooling at her stagnant feet. "Just do it already," she stopped short of begging him. The threat of death might just be worse than the real thing. It had to be.

Sasori threw his head back and laughed. Cackling. Deranged. If that was not bad enough, he started to clap. Slowly. Loudly. Mockingly.

She inhaled shakily, breath shattered. Blinking back the tears that her pride would not allow her to shed. Even if doing so would make her lighter. Not in front of him.

Show no weakness in front of the enemy.

So why did she say all that? Why did she choose now to be honest? Painfully honest. To a man who was laughing at her. Openly. All the while she hurt.

"You're such a princess," Sasori wiped the moisture from his eye. His smile was large and loose. It fit his face unnaturally. For the first time, she understood why some animals perceived smiling as an act of aggression. "Three days in the comfort of your own home and you have the privilege of saying all that while Namikaze is out there risking his actual life."

Namikaze? Is that his last name?

"I didn't send him. He wouldn't let me."

"You're an adult, princess. You don't need to let anyone let you do anything," he scoffed in disgust. He lowered himself into the chair. He leaned forward, his forearms loose as they rested over his thighs. "You sent him. You can't simultaneously can't play the victim all the while forcing his hand. You can't have it both ways."

He's out there. Out in the open. While I'm….

Sasori twirled something thin and metallic - pointy - between his fingers. His eyes were glued to her posture; her bowed head and hunched shoulders. She was pitiful. Easy to read. Quick to break. His brows moved a fraction closer together at the roll of her shoulders. He tapped the metal instrument against the inside of his knee. He felt the cold against the skin poking through his ripped acid-wash jeans.

"How rude of me," Sakura was smiling at him with her eyes closed. "I didn't offer you any refreshments. You must be hungry. How does fruit sound?" She asked brightly. Artificial as the canned lights over their heads.

"Sure," he said with a disinterested shrug, watching her walk by him. He rose when he lost sightlines.

Keep her where you can see her.

Those were his orders. He would not be caught a second time defying them. He pulled a chair back, falling into it. The solid wood legs scraped against the linoleum flooring. He placed the senbon at the corner of his mouth. The back of it poked the tender flesh of his inner cheek. It was to his mild surprise that she practically pirouetted from the counter to the table with two apples, two plates, and a knife all stacked neatly between her two hands. She used her slippered foot to pull the legs of the chair just enough to slink into it.

She sat with her elbows on the table separating the bottom plate - a mint color - from the top. She picked up one of the apples and began to peel it.

"How long have you been using?" She did not look up from the fruit she was freeing of its outer shiny layer.

Sasori raised his eyes from her hands - he had been appraising the knife - to her face.

"You kept your socks on," Sakura explained with a sigh - feeling the gesture she did not see. "It's hot in here. Too hot for socks."

"But not slippers?" He drawled, blinking his eyes slowly.

"They don't have backs," she smiled. The apple was completely bare. She began to cut uniform pieces with a sure and steady hand. "And I'm not wearing socks with them."

"You're insane," Sasori concluded with a snort. "The prettier they are…," he leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. His toes curled toward the wooden legs of the chair. They twitched.

You're deflecting.

"Your eyes are glassy. You can't focus. You're overly blunt. Probably because you're miserable. You haven't stopped sweating since you came in from outside but you won't shed your jacket. You're twitchy." She slid the plate of the cut apples toward him. She picked up the second one, bringing the knife to make first contact. "You haven't been itching your arms which means there's no active sites. Within the last few days at least."

"And I'm wearing socks," he pointed out with feigned levels of honesty, shaking his head. He pulled the plate the rest of the way until it was directly in front of him. He stabbed one end of the senbon into the apple. The plates clattered. He wiped away the splatter that landed on his face. He bit off a large chunk, chewing with his mouth open.

"How long have you been trying to get clean?" She asked, unbothered by the disproportionately violent display of aggression. Misplaced too probably.

"A while," he supplied in a monotone. "Third time trying."

That tracks.

"There are programs," she regarded his face with empathy. She was careful to not let it go too far and reveal pity. There was no faster way to get someone to shut down. "They don't ask any questions beyond if you're serious about it. I can help you connect with them if you want." Her good friend Lee ran a rehabilitation center. He had experience in helping addicts turn their lives around.

Getting people back on their feet and in control of their lives was his life's work after an accident that left him with less than a thirty percent chance of walking. Lee had just finished his fifth marathon on the seventh anniversary of the crash. He placed third. It took nearly a week for her voice to come back from cheering him on, loudly. He was hands down the most inspirational person she knew. Hands down. No contest.

Lee can help him. Lee would be good for him.

"I know what I'm doing. It's all under control," Sasori polished off the second of the apple slices.

"Good to know that something is," Sakura nibbled on her first. "Do you get assignments like this often from your colleague?" Her green eyes flickered over his shoulder where her plaid jacket was draped on the back of the sofa. Surrounded by plastic. "Picking up his dry cleaning?" She asked with a level of innocence that fooled no one.

"I wear many hats," Sasori was smirking. "I'm a real go-getter," he embellished the claim with the same dry voice. Bored. Listless. His fingers tapped the marble as his foot danced up and down, his whole leg shaking.

If I can find the right buttons….

"Does one of those hats include cleaning up after he's killed someone?" She held his gaze, fearlessly. Boldly. Foolishly. Sasori was a weaker nut to crack. His shell had a ways to go before it reached Minato's level. That much she knew.

Give me something.

Something that tilted the scales. One way or the other. She did not care. She just had to know what type of man was sleeping on her couch. Who was the real Minato? The one from the coffee shop or the one from the subway station?

Tell me.

Even if he ended up telling Minato too. If that was the cost, that was the cost.

The beads of perspiration on his upper lip glistened under the white light like he was wearing body glitter. Something sinister filled the depths of his earthy eyes as he peered at her. Devouring. His gaze was ready to eat her whole.

"You don't know the Lieutenant at all." The manner in which he shook his head left ambiguity in her impression. Was it amusement or disappointment? Or both.

"The Lieutenant?" She asked with more caution. Sasori's loose lips were moving and she did not know for how long he would be so magnanimous with his words. Her strategy was simple, to fill her cup with as much nectar of knowledge that was flowing out of him. She could drink later.

"The syndicate - the clans - operate as a family. You have the Big Boss at the top. He's the dad if you will," Sasori moved his wrist loosely, idly. The apple slice was hanging on for dear life. But neither of them was concerned about its hardships. "Untouchable. His word is written into stone. In the muscle part of the organization, you then have the lieutenants. His right and left hands. The First Lieutenant and the Second Lieutenant. There is mobility here but turnover is relatively low. Unless someone gets capped - either internally or externally. It's happened in the past. Usually more often than not when a lieutenant forgets the hand that feeds him and gets a little too greedy."

Lieutenants. They use ranks. Like the military.

The thought had never occurred to her before now. It should have. It damn well should have. They were disciplined. They were organized. They followed orders. They were well-funded. They ran the city, for crying out loud! There were more similarities between the ranks than differences she could think of in the split seconds that existed between Sasori's words.

"Namikaze was my older brother - the next step down from lieutenant. Making me," he pointed at himself with the apple spear. "His little brother - the lowest on the clan pole." He chuckled humorlessly. "Any questions?"

So many.

"You said 'the muscle part of the organization', is there more?" She folded her hands in her lap, where he could not see them. Her fingers were shaking slightly.

"There's always more, pinkie," Sasori eyed her plate. "You gonna eat that?"

"Help yourself," she answered without hesitation.

The more he took, the more she had to hold on to. She hoped the formula continued to work out in her favor. He bared his teeth at her in what was not a grin. It was too feral. He walked his fingers - index and middle - until they touched the edge of the plate. He pulled it to him, slowly. Seemingly savoring the way her eyes followed his action.

"There's the money side - the bookkeepers, the accountants, the legal advisors, the desk jobs." He licked his fingers, sucking on them while maintaining eye contact. His smirk grew more haughty when she did not react to the instigation.

The lawyers, the government officials, the politicians, the cooks, the maids, the drivers, everyone else.

They all feel under this umbrella, this side. It was a whole ecosystem. One that thrived. It was complicated.

"You called," she hesitated in her duality of how to refer to him - to the man that was living in her home, "Namikaze a lieutenant but he was also your big brother, I'm assuming there was a gap between the two things." The fact that Sasori was still always around Minato, the bond was strong. In the odd bits and pieces of their interactions, she had never heard Minato so much as raise his voice with Sasori, and yet the man came. He fell in line. It spoke to the respect he had for the blond - for his lieutenant. "When did you join? When did you meet him?"

"There are two types of people in the Akatsuki," he held out two fingers. "Those who have no choice but to be there," he lowered his index finger so only his middle was left extended out. From his grin, she knew it was intentional. He was so proud of himself. "And those who choose to be there. Guess which one I am, princess."

Addicts always lie….

The first pamphlet for supporting someone through addiction had opened with that. The one she had read while in his office. She recalled what Lee said to her during her first training session before she could volunteer her time at his center.

Don't turn your back on them, Sakura.

She furrowed her brow. Maybe Lee's statement was not as hopeful and idealistic as she thought. Maybe he was trying to warn her without using as many words.

Which one is he?

Was he born into it? Or did he seek it?

It felt like a trick question. It really did. She had an answer immediately - the one her instincts believed to be true - but she also had an inkling that if she answered wrong she failed the test. Because it was a test. She had not seen Sasori so alert or engaged before. Granted the sample size was small but her claim stood on its own merit.

"Tick tock, princess," he clicked his tongue as if it was the second hand of a clock. The friction of his jeans as his leg moved up and down, up and down, up and down slammed against her eardrum like tiny, persistent mallets.

You have a good head on your shoulders, Sakura. Trust your instincts. Go with your gut.

The memory of Lee's large, encouraging smile and gentle eyes accompanied his voice resounding in her head - guiding her where she was unsure which path to pursue.

"The latter," she said decisively, staring him dead in the eyes. "You're the latter."

You picked this for yourself.

"Right you are," he leaned back in the chair again with a smug expression. "And that should tell you everything you need to know."

It told her nothing she did not already derive about him. He was crazy. He was unstable. He was unpredictable. That was true. She figured that out in all of ten minutes after Minato had left. But what did that say about Minato - the man who trusted him? What did it say about her? That she was not ready to think about.

"Tell me," she pressed her weight on her bent arms, hunched forward. "Tell me anyway."

"It's going to cost you," he lifted up one end of the plate high before he let it go without warning, leaving it to clatter.

You just keep yapping and leave the rest to me.

"No problem," she did not even blink. "Do you like lasagna?"

Sasori grinned.

xXx

He was not early. He was not late. At exactly the top of the hour, he was standing in front of the black metal door. The house was small. On a comparatively large lot. The front was lush and green even in the winter months. Native plants - mature - and allowed to do their own thing. All without it being an eyesore so that the neighbors with the lush, well-maintained lawns could not grumble too much. In the five minutes that he had been sitting in the car - timing his precise arrival at the door - he had seen no shortage of three faces pressed against glass or standing in a doorway watching him. A man in a bathrobe - it was in the afternoon - had come out to check his mailbox at the end of his yard twice in that time, missing no opportunity to peer at his car. Not even remotely subtly despite all the effort he was putting into appearing that way.

Minato's hand - the one still wrapped in bandages for more aesthetic reasons than anything at this point - was outside of the pocket of his jeans. It felt strange not to be in a suit. He almost felt naked - more naked than actually being naked - without it. But his shoulder was throbbing - forcing it through two sleeves was one too many.

Did people wear suits to other people's homes?

Flowers in the house. Big bouquets of peonies, lilies, and camellias. All of them were white. And despite their big, dark, bountiful leaves, depressing. It had not stopped raining for six days after the service - the wake. A canopy of black umbrellas hid the gray and dreary sky. It was like a scene out of a movie. Only he could not turn it off or walk away. The sniffling noses. The stifling embraces. The smell of death wrapped around him in a vice. Patting him on the back. Muttering words that meant nothing then or now. Completely meaningless. The show, the pomp, the woman wailing so loudly that he almost ran out of there. He wanted to. He had been eyeing the door - counting the number of people he would have to blur by. He was not worried. He was fast. He was numb. But as if reading his mind - he had an uncanny track record - he scooted closer to him. A shuffle of small feet in black socks. A gesture so muted and subdued that it was missed by nearly everyone. Nearly. Its impact was profound. He had straightened his back even if his head had lowered into a bow. The tops of his gray socks started to dampen. Sporadically. Gradually. Suddenly. His small hand was warm on his shoulder - through his gray collared shirt because he was the only one not in a full suit. He had grown out of his last one and his parents had not gotten the chance to take him shopping to buy a new one.

It did not take long for another hand to reach out for his. Warm and soft. Bigger than the one on his shoulder. His clammy fingers twitched but the owner of the hand did not seem to mind. She did not look at him as she blotted at his tears. She just seemed to know. Their hands did not feel like the one on his head. Large and heavy. The one that kept his head bowed even if his neck hurt from the prolonged position. Thankfully the hand that was last to arrive was the first to leave. The hand holding his stayed a little while longer. Until his tears dried and his shoulder stopped shaking. Water. Black liner sock-clad feet pulled away with the promise of relief for his dry, itchy throat.

The hand on his shoulder remained. Constant and steady. Even when he must have lost feeling in his fingers from all the blood collecting at his elbow. He stood by his side. Even when the bodies left, the flowers withered, and the contents of his family home were boxed up and sold. He was there. Always there.

Until he was not.

Because Minato had left his side fist. And for what? To train? For a pipe dream. For running circles around the complex trying to shave seconds off of his qualifying time. For something he had been working so diligently on for months - his whole life - at that point. On that day, he did manage to lose those seconds but what he remembered was losing a whole lot more. A couple of lost seconds did not help him in any way. He had been too slow. Much too slow. That was what stuck with him. An absence he would always feel. All because he had opted to go for a run. He wore a suit for his wake - remembering every detail down to the white chrysanthemums - and nearly every day not lost to grief after that.

If only I could turn back. If only I could run back to that time. To that day. To that place.

Minato shook his head, freeing himself of memories he did not expect to invoke with a simple question. A simple question that he did not have an answer to as he did not know what normal people did. To keep from ruminating on something that would not bring him closer to anything but sadness, he told himself this: if jeans were good enough for Sakura, it would have to be good enough for him. And it helped with the restlessness somewhat. His fist was poised to make contact with the security door but the red door behind it opened first. His expression did not change in all the time he was standing there - less than fifteen seconds was all that was needed to get lost. Minato smiled at the woman through the black grates. A flash of green was the first thing he noticed.

Again.

"Hello, Ms. Haruno," he did not make any sudden movements. "I'm Minato. We spoke on the video call earlier," his voice was pleasant and agreeable. Low and soft. He still could not get over the lengths Sakura had gone to make it believable. She had put up her hair and donned her scrubs and her white coat. Even clipped her badge to the breast pocket of said coat. They had found a blank wall not lined with photos or peeling paint, with an earphone each in one of their ears - because there was no way that they could do a video call on speaker in the hospital where they supposedly were. In hindsight the exercise served two purposes, he was going with his eyes wide open. He knew exactly what to expect. Maybe.

She looked at me like that too…back at the Tani Station.

Distrusting was Mebuki's gaze as she continued to eye him silently. He interpreted that as a prompt to continue speaking - to explain his presence.

"I'm here with your groceries." He tilted his head in the direction of his hand. The hand that was holding two canvas tote bags. The ones he was pretending were not heavy. Just like he was pretending his shoulder did not hurt. The damn seat belt had been eating into his injury the whole drive down. Not to mention the wear and tear from gathering the items on the list. He thought he was doing a good enough job masking it until an old lady shaking with age and nearly blind with cataracts offered to open up the produce bags he was struggling with. That had been humbling, to say the least. The red door started to move closer to the frame, to slam on his face. The window - the door - was closing.

"Ms. Haruno," he kept his growing frustration off his face and his voice. "The milk and eggs are going to go bad." He conveniently ignored the ill-timed wind that slapped against him. It would take hours for that to be the case in these cool temperatures. His arm and his patience would give out long before his words became true.

"I don't believe you," Mebuki spat out. Voice as sharp as a whip.

I'm beginning to see the problem.

First hand. Up close and personal.

"Are you a doctor?" Mebuki narrowed her eyes at him, mostly hidden behind the door. Her grip around the edge was white-knuckled.

"No," he shook his head slowly - non-threateningly. His eyes crinkled as he doubled the charm. It got the old lady at the store to blush when coupled with the bouquet of roses he bought her as a token of his appreciation. "I am part of the hospital admin. In shipping and receiving," he lied smoothly. Believably.

"Then how did you meet Sakura?" Mebuki's lips were set in a harsh line. "How did you meet my Sakura?" Her voice reached an octave that was firmly in the shrill category. Again, vaguely familiar. Just enough to cause him to trip up.

"At a coffee shop, Naruto's Gutsy Cafe. I'm sure you heard Sakura mention it." His arm was beginning to tremble slightly. He paid it no mind.

"What a horrible name," Mebuki noted with disdain, still not moved.

The chuckle that left his throat this time was genuine. Jiraiya would bristle at what he deemed fighting words. He named it after the main character of his first book. But unlike the book, his cafe was not a failed venture. So maybe the name was not the problem after all, not that Minato would know as he rather liked the book and found the coffee to be only average.

"I agree." A gust of wind picked up curled leaves. He was protected from the elements under the covered wrap-around porch. The wooden swing bench, painted white creaked slightly as it rocked back and forth. It was either the movement or the sound that had a round, gray roll starting to loosen up on the blue seating cushion.

"Sakura has worked for the hospital for five years. Three as a resident, two years full-time in the ER," Mebuki stated matter-of-factly. "In all those years I have only met one friend."

The word she chose to emphasize left a certain impression on him. One that had him holding back a sigh. The tightness of his stitches was not the most troublesome thing he was dealing with at the moment. Not even remotely.

Yet another similarity.

"Something came up at the last minute, Ms. Haruno. Like Sakura explained in the video call." A call that was entirely too long - ten minutes - and seemingly a waste of time from where he stood. "Someone called in sick. It couldn't be helped. She wanted to be here."

She had planned on being here.

"And I am supposed to believe she lost her phone?" Mebuki asked with a dismissive attitude. "Sakura isn't careless."

Maybe not. But she is reckless. It's in the same family.

"It stopped working," he corrected without calling out in surprise. "It was on the older side. She had been meaning to get an upgrade for a while now." He did not waver - did not show his surprise - when the gray, bunched-up roll, moved through his legs, brushing against them.

"Cheddar!" Mebuki admonished the fat gray tabby. "I've been looking everywhere for you! When did you get outside?!" She demanded with the utmost seriousness leaving him to wonder if she actually expected a response from the cat.

Did Sakura mention anything about medication?

She did not and Minato could not help but feel like she should have.

The cat responded by sitting on his shoe, tilting his head up, and mewling. And then he promptly began to groom himself. Minato raised his eyes from the cat to the blonde-haired woman for direction on how to proceed.

I've only had deer around growing up.

For what it was worth, Mebuki seemed every bit as unsure as Minato felt.

So far all I am is out.

"Ms. Haruno?" He asked her when the weight of her blank stare became too much for him to endure more of. He regretted uttering a sound because the stare did not improve, it worsened as it became more shrewd in its calculating nature.

"Who are you?" Mebuki asked in a voice that did not suffer fools. "Who are you really?"

Even the cat - Cheddar - paused grooming himself to peer up at him with amber eyes. Waiting much like the woman behind the dark, metal security door.

Waiting. They were waiting for an answer. His unofficial last chance. He would not go back to Sakura's apartment with anything but a successful mission.

Minato inhaled a breath only halfway, speaking before it made its way past his nose or throat. "I'm Sakura's boyfriend."

A beat. He held his breath for a beat. Because for a moment he was genuinely concerned he did the exact wrong thing. It was a good thing his hand was full and the other was basically non-responsive because he had no way of fidgeting. The need to fidget was great. His nose itched.

It was when Mebuki's face chanced that he finally granted himself a breath. It was as if a light switch had been turned on behind her green eyes. She lit up. "My Lovebug's love?" She exclaimed, already halfway to pushing open the black door. It swung out. Minato took a step back which earned him a huff of displeasure from the cat that had become a gargoyle of sorts on the top of his foot. "Come in! Come in!" Mebuki beamed at him. "Before the cold gets you." She waved him in, fussing over seemingly everything. "You too Cheddar. Get inside."

The cat sauntered between the open doors first, his long tail which was bald at the tip was almost vertical as its back paws stepped in the vacancies left by his front paws. Minato followed after him, wondering just how much closer to being dead he had made himself just now.

Maybe I should have let her call the police.

xXx

"Slow down, you'll choke," she grumbled as she watched him scarf down a portion and a half.

"Then you'll just have to give me the Heimlich," his brows disappeared under his red bangs. "Where was I?" He splattered red sauce on her white marble tabletop, pushing it off the plate's edge with the hard, dry bread he was using to sop it up.

Then I would just have to accidentally break a few of your ribs in the process, creep.

Sakura's eye twitched as she quickly wiped it away with a napkin before the stone could stain. "You were just saying how after running away from your abusive step-dad and your enabling mother, you landed at your grandmother's," her face held traces of pity despite her best efforts to not let it show. "Things were good but then she passed two years later."

"Right," he sighed. "Granny never got around to updating her will - writing her daughter out of it - so they got the house. I was too young for it to matter anyway. I was eleven and I decided I would rather live on the streets than go back to them." Back to being a punching bag. "So I approached the first clan that would take me. I had a classmate who was a Nara. Toshi. He was less annoying than everyone else. I hated him the least. He made me want to pummel his face in the least. I loitered around their compound for weeks before I threw myself in front of the Big Boss's car. I told him I would die for him. He just had to tell me when and where."

Damn. It's like the Series of Unfortunate Events without the disguises and the baby for comedic relief.

"At eleven?" She asked in disbelief, her stomach clenching as she pictured it in her head; Sasori, covered head to toe in grime, clothes in tatters. Pouring rain. A long black town car with tinted windows. A faceless, larger-than-life man stepped out of the car and under an open umbrella that waited for him, carried by a blurry-faced bodyguard. Everyone with either a gun or katana. Maybe even both. Listening as Sasori made his case as best as he could.

"I stopped being a kid long before then. So you can fix that face of yours, it's starting to piss me off." As if to illustrate the extent of his building anger, he stabbed what was left of the lasagna on his plate, metal clanking with ceramic. It screeched when he dragged it from one end to the other.

She lowered her eyes but dared not apologize. It would be her hand or some other fleshy part of her that he stabbed next, her sense of self-preservation told her that much.

His impulse control is far from refined.

"He accepted. They paired me with Namikaze because he was an outsider too. He took me under his wing. Taught me everything - well the parts I could be bothered with learning. How to handle a weapon. How to survive. What not to say to who and when; he taught me all that. He's still teaching me. Even fourteen years later."

He gained a family. The Clan gave him what he had for only a short time.

"Earlier you made a comment," she was the first one to find her voice between them after what was far from a comfortable silence. "That I don't know him at all." It was the truth but it bothered her more than it should have. "What did you mean by that?" She prepared herself for whatever may come. Ridicule, candor, sarcasm.

The truth.

"You're a doctor right?" His eyes moved up from his empty plate - a mess - to her face which in all honesty was not much better. There was so much expression - emotion. Confusing. "So you're smart. Presumably."

"Presumably."

"So you tell me, doc, why in a clan full of geniuses an outsider is the Big Boss's right hand - his first lieutenant? And that too when he was just twenty-seven, becoming the youngest First Lieutenant in clan history." He waited for an answer.

How the hell am I supposed to know that?

She furrowed her brow. "I-," she bit her lip to contain her tongue. Saying "I don't know," was not acceptable. It was the easy way out. "He must…," she sighed. There were too many unknowns and thus too many possibilities of what could be the truth. "He must bring a value that no one else does," she concluded with less than ample confidence.

"No shit," Sasori was far from impressed at her cop-out of an answer. "Let's try again, doc. Keep in mind this would be your second strike." He frowned at her. "You know anything about baseball?"

"Enough to know what that means."

He's warning me. Two more and I'm out.

If only Sakuto could see her now. He would know that she was paying attention when he explained the rules. He would also come to know that she just found the sport boring which probably never entered his baseball-obsessed mind.

It's a good thing Sakuto can't see me now. He'd be horrified. Disappointed.

Distraught. He would be distraught that she was sitting across from this man who had threatened her so casually and that too in her own home. Not only that, she was feeding him.

"Have you ever paused to think why he's able to go outside? To go do whatever errand you have him doing while you're holed up in here like a naked mole rat?"

Rude!

Sakura actively worked against her initial knee-jerk reaction which was to get defensive, immediately. He was leading her somewhere. But she was no closer to where. "You said he was out there risking his life."She furrowed her brow. Her large forehead filled with lines.

"Did I?" Sasori picked at his nails, unbothered. "Well, I suppose he could off himself in a car accident. Or out of boredom," he let out a sigh that could be classified as longing. "Don't think I'll forget," he flashed her a grin. "What's that head of yours telling you, huh?"

He's a lieutenant - the right hand. The clan would welcome him back. The clan would protect him. He's here…he's here for me?

"He's feared," Sakura's shock carried into her voice. "He's respected. He's capable."

"He's like nothing anyone's seen before," Sasori smirked. "He's too valuable to die in a shootout in the streets. What happened in the subway - that shitshow - is probably the first time he fired his weapon outside of the range in over a decade."

No way. That can't be true…can it?

"He's a lousy shot," she blurted out, alarmed. Aiming was like riding a bike. It did not matter how much time had passed between the last two points, the line connected would be mostly smooth. She herself knew. She had shot a man in the hand after essentially two decades between the previous and current last times and that too under duress.

Sasori giggled. With glee. Sakura sat back, chin turning into two given how far she was pushing herself back into her seat when his fist collided with her table. A howl of laughter was what he had reached. Sasori downed his glass of water. He was grinning from ear to ear. His eyes sparkled with something almost sinister.

"The disrespect," Sasori's shoulders trembled with the last of his fit. "Namikaze never misses unintentionally. Three guys came after him, princess. If Namikaze was as lousy with a gun as you said…why would they send three?" He did not give her a moment to think it over. "Because if you ever find yourself 1-v-1 with Minato Namikaze and you're the one with the gun, you're," he moved his index finger across his throat horizontally while maintaining aggressive eye contact. "Toast," he emphasized the last consonant sound.

He missed on purpose? Why?

"Namikaze," he cleared his throat, tugging at the collar of his shirt. "Is the best of the best. No one is faster than him at the draw. If he were a samurai or one of 'em cowboys they had in Suna, he would have lived to be old enough to die of something boring." He scoffed, frowning at her. Disgusted with what he saw - with what he was forced to endure. "A lieutenant that can't shoot. Have you been day drinking, doc?"

Sakura ignored the jeer at her preposterous statement. She deserved it. Maybe. It did not matter to her what Sasori thought of her. No, what mattered was what Sasori thought of Minato. Sasori was talking him up. Putting Minato almost on a pedestal. And she wondered for a brief moment - a split second - if Minato asked him to. To say all this. To make himself look more dangerous? Sympathetic? She was not sure what but something.

No. No that's not it. You don't strike me as the type to kiss ass.

She closed her mouth, not fully aware of her own actions. It was too much, all at once, all over the place. She was smoking like a server that had water spilled inside of it. Fritzing. Short-circuiting as she tried to differentiate between the truth - the actual and the perceived.

Addicts always lie…but why would he lie about this? Unless he's trying to get in Minato's good graces again?

Cold. Minato was noticeably colder toward Sasori. He had barely looked at him long enough to say three words. Even the conversations on the phone were kept short. She had thought it was because of a lack of privacy in the cramped quarters. But what if something else was the reason behind it?

What if he's telling the truth?

How would that fit into what she was struggling with? Would that make it easier or harder to reconcile the two Minato? What if there was a third option? One she had not even considered. That would break the math.

What if Minato was neither completely innocent nor entirely guilty? Somewhere between a saint and a sinner?

What if….

If he did not use his weapon - if the head muscle did not use his brawn…what was left that brought value?

His brain.

"He does both," Sakura said with growing conviction, flattening her palms on the cold table. "He does something that neither faction of the clan does." The money and the muscle.

He's the bridge between them.

Sasori snorted. "Took you long enough." He lowered his chin into his palm, his fingers were curled toward his slightly chapped lips. "You got anything sweet?"

She nodded her head, standing mutely. She moved with legs that felt as structural sound as jello toward the countertop. Her hands were moving to the mint-colored jar where she kept cookies. A late-night guilty pleasure for when she could not sleep and did not feel like hot chocolate - because the peeing was annoying. A pleasure she did not indulge in since her life was turned upside down. She held the jar to her navel, turning around slowly.

You earned it.

She found his eyes on her. Something was dancing behind them, powered by the half-smirk on his lips. "Ever wonder, doc, why he never approached you first? In all these months." He posed the question with nonchalance. It was not received in the same manner.

No.

He had given her more than enough to sit with. She was at capacity. She placed the jar on the center of the table, just making it before it slipped from her hands. She did not entertain the thought as she started to gather the dirtied dishes - scrubbing them free of their filth before she washed it down the drain.

xXx

So much for in and out.

The couch was firm. The air in the home smelled a little stale as a place where the windows were seldom open wound up smelling. He could smell the cat but not in an invasive way. The litter boxes were tucked away, hidden in what appeared to be just a standard end table. No offensive scent came from them. The living room was small but cozy. The rug under his feet - none of the slippers came close to fitting - was plush and free of mess. There were hand-crocheted doilies on the backs of the brown couch cushions. Everything was a shade of brown or ventured into reddish-brown. The mantle was lined with pictures, the display case filled with medals and frames of certifications - accomplishments. The largest photo in the room was of three faces. A younger Mebuki was on the last steps of the stairs, smiling. A little girl with pink hair standing a step above her beaming proudly to show off the missing front teeth, with her hands folded over her mother's shoulder. A young man was standing next to the banister wearing the full-teeth edition of the smile the girl donned.

All three of them were smiling with their whole faces. Happy. Exuding the emotion in excess. The way they smiled had him thinking that the picture was not planned. Their clothing was a step up from loungewear. Sakura's hair was messy like she had been running around, letting the wing caress her locks. Her cheeks were flushed red. Mebuki was without makeup and wearing an apron that had flour on it. The picture was real. A natural snapshot of their past. A time capsule that they could always look back to.

Normal. Carefree. Together.

S. Haruno, the younger version of the photographed man displayed in Sakura's basement clinic. He smiled the same all those years and a major life decision apart. The picture was not taken in this house. The house he was in was a single story - there were no stairs for them to stand on and pose for the photo. Just like the stairs were missing in the house, the photo was missing another face - a person. A father. The picture was missing the man of the house.

She never talks about her father.

In all fairness, he acknowledged that she brought up her mother because she had to. So maybe it was not an anomaly that she never mentioned the man. Or her brother for that matter.

"Are you comfortable?" Mebuki asked him as she held a tray containing two steaming mugs of apple cider and a plate of small donuts dusted with cinnamon sugar. "Do you need a blanket?"

"I'm fine, thank you," he assured her with a smile that seemed to please her. Minato carefully hooked his fingers around the long handle of the green mug. He set it down on the coaster on the coffee table before he picked a donut from the plate.

Mebuki was all smiles when she set the plate down on the table and sat on the recliner across from him with the mug placed under her chin. "Let me look at you," she said with a content sigh.

The corner of his mouth twitched in a nervous tick but she hardly seemed to notice. She was much too focused on her overall appraisal of him.

"You're tall," her eyes flitted over him like he was a fabric she was contemplating making a high-end garment out of it. "You have a full head of hair. No noticeable grays. You have good skin. Some lines. How old are you?"

"I turn thirty-five in January."

Mebuki smacked her lips. "Sakura is turning thirty-two in March." The age gap was inconsequential. "Have you been married before?"

"No." The sugar felt coarse against his skin. It was sticking to the thin layer of perspiration. He did not know what to do with the miniature donut he held. Just like he had no idea as to why he had even taken it. He could not put it back on the plate - he had contaminated it with his touch - and whatever appetite he had worked up to polish it off was lost somewhere along the path of her questioning. He eyed the too-hot-to-drink cider.

It would dissolve it.

But his net total of problems would still be one.

"Have you been close?" Her lips were pursed in a display of her more than infrequent line. Tiny fissures appeared around her mouth. She must spend a lot of time scowling or frowning to have developed them in that formation.

"No."

"Any children?" She quirked a brow. "There used to be a time when the marriage question would answer this question. But nowadays it is not safe to assume anything."

"No children," he shook his head in what was a forced steadiness. He did not want to come across as disingenuous - like he had that particular thing to hide.

"Hm," she swallowed back a sip of her cider after blowing on it. "Do you want children?"

"Maybe," he answered with more honesty than he was used to. "Some day." He had not really thought about it. He never needed to think about it before because he knew what his answer was by default given his circumstances. No. In the darkness that was his life - his world - he believed it to be irresponsible to bring more life into it. It would be incredibly selfish. But maybe it did not have to be that way forever. "It would be nice."

If I'm lucky. If my actions leave something of me behind when I'm done answering for my sins.

"Men," Mebuki rolled her eyes and sighed long-suffering. "You have the luxury of being indecisive and waiting. You have all the time in the world! My daughter does not. Sakura wants kids," Mebuki shook her head. "She's just too stubborn and set in her ways to admit it out loud. What am I telling you for?" Mebuki asked him a variation of the question he was thinking. "You probably know all about her stubbornness," she tutted, now shaking her head in earnest. "That girl," she finished with a sigh.

He tried not to squirm or think too deeply about the predicament he led himself in. Staying silent seemed like the play to make.

I should have left the groceries at her door.

As if that was ever an option. He had given her his word and that meant everything to him even if it was next to nothing for her. Sensing his growing dread - which was still kept off his carefully crafted mask - Cheddar deemed it fitting to wander over from the other edge of the sofa arm to clamber into his lap. His long thin tail flicked just as he finished curling himself up. His tiny paws inflicted pain disproportionate to their size where he had stepped.

"I can't believe she thought I wouldn't sniff out the truth. Just who does she take me for? I'm her mother!" Mebuki chewed on a donut with irateness on the tail-end of maintaining a one-sided inquisition. "The two of you are much too old to be doing something like this." She frowned deeply.

He lowered his eyes, thoroughly admonished. "She wanted to do it herself."

"Figures." The woman let out a long-suffering sigh. "She's been that way since she learned to crawl." Mebuki's eyes lit up. "Pictures! Sakura was the most darling baby!" Mebuki clapped her hands. Her mug sat on the coaster on the table. "Where did I leave my album?" She asked herself out loud on her way out of both the recliner and ultimately the room, leaving Minato with a cat that sounded like a motor engine vibrating in his lap.

Is that normal?

He could not help the concern that bled into his internal thought process. Nothing felt normal. Not in the slightest.

xXx

"And that is from when Sakura was in preschool. She finally stopped crying every morning at drop off after she made her first friend during the second week," Mebuki smiled fondly, smoothing a hand over the plastic film that protected the pictures from fingerprints and other damage.

Minato's lips pulled into a smile at the sight of a little girl on top of a red tricycle. Her red shoes with bows on them matched the color perfectly. She was entirely pleased with herself. So proud.

She still has that same face.

The smug Sakura face. Mebuki was right. Sakura was a cute baby. A pudgy little thing who wore her whole heart on her face. That same baby aged through the pages into a darling toddler - even when she had an overturned flower pot over her head, beaming without a care in the world as dirt fell to her shoulders. She held out the small yellow flower to the camera, eyes crinkled with delight. That same toddler was waving with a pink cartoon backpack as she stood with her arm linked around a little girl with twin buns on either side of her head. She too was grinning until her eyes were barely visible. All teeth. Both of their smiles were toothy.

"Sakuto - the apple of her eye - gave her some candy to share with a girl with brown hair, Tenten," Mebuki tapped her finger against the photo of the two girls. "Yeah, that was her name. He convinced Sakura that they were magic and they would make anyone like her. She was so nervous you see. Shy. His words - no one gets through Sakura like Sakuto - gave her the confidence to try. She was so determined. The candies broke the ice and the rest was history. They became attached at the hip. Inseparable. Sakura didn't have enough hair to do twin buns like Tenten's mom did hers. She was so upset. She cried at the drop of the hat. Incredibly sensitive from the start. It was only when Sakuto told her she looked cute in her bunny ears - because some bunnies have droopy ears - that she finally got over it. RaRa's bunny ears. Naturally, she went through the rest of the year in that hairstyle. First grade too. Until some brat tried to cut one of them off during nap time. Her teacher stopped him just in time. Caught the boy red-handed. The same boy who picked on Sakura. I think he had a crush on her. She was such a darling little thing." Mebuki let out a dreamy sigh, reliving the past in her present. She held on a moment longer just relishing in it all; remembering the smell of finger paint, the brightly colored classroom adorned with butterflies cut out of neon construction paper, and the tiny plastic desks. Her brow furrowed causing her forehead to erupt in lines. They peeked through her dark blonde bangs.

"Oh, Sakuto was livid. Told the boy and his parents off and then some when the parents downplayed it as a prank. My husband had to smooth things over to keep Sakura from getting kicked out after they raised a fuss. They even threatened to lodge a letter of complaint to Sakuto's superior. My husband promised them free oil changes for all their cars for a year. He was a mechanic at the time. Always covered in grease no matter how much he washed his hands. It was a part of him. It took ages for Sakura to stop avoiding his reach when she wore white. She always hated getting dirty. A peculiar little girl she was."

Mebuki tapped the picture with a far-off look in her eyes. "Sakura was a mess when Tenten and her family moved away. She was in the second…no third grade. Couldn't be helped. Tenten's mother was in the military." Mebuki sighed deeply. "Sakuto took Sakura to the park every day for a whole month after school and that was after he walked her to school in the mornings - the month he was on leave. Neither one of them told us what they talked about during those walks. Sometimes it was as if they had their own language, one me and my husband never could learn. I was worried about the age gap. I obsessed over it. The age gap. My husband thought I was crazy. He was right - he usually is. They never fought. I worried for nothing. Sakuto offered her more magic candy but Sakura never took it."

Minato straightened at the sudden heat from her eyes directed right at him with a clear focus.

"How long have you been seeing my daughter?"

"Ten months." It was not a complete lie. Ten months ago was when he first saw her and he had been "seeing" her every morning when she had a shift at the hospital. Ten months ago she suddenly appeared in his life and his morning stopped feeling complete if he did not catch a glimpse of her.

"Ten months?" Mebuki asked, taken aback.

Two months. I should have said two months.

But would that have been enough time for Sakura to send someone to her home?

Why does it feel like I just earned her a lecture? And myself too.

He inwardly apologized to the smiling pinkette who was dressed as a bumble bee for Halloween in the pink and red photobook.

"And she didn't tell me in all this time," Mebuki shook her head, clicking her tongue in disapproval. "Do you live together?"

He took a beat. Honesty here did not seem like the best policy as per the reaction to his previous response. "No."

"Good," she said with finality. "Do you plan on marrying her?" Her eyes had narrowed. "Or are you wasting her time?"

Minato swallowed. "The last thing I want to do is waste her time," he lied without malice. It was the second to last thing he wanted to do. He could not tell Mebuki the first thing.

"Hm." Mebuki turned the page to reveal six more photos - three on either side. "This is at Sakuto's high school graduation. Such a handsome boy." She smoothed her hand to the photograph of the teen in a dark blue cap and gown. He was beaming - a Haruno family signature. A white tassel hung from the cap that sat upon his magenta hair. In this picture, his eyes looked more blue than green but that could have just been the reflection of the gown. Or that fact that his sister's - Sakura's - jade irises were right there as a litmus for purity in both vibrancy and hue. Sakura - no older than five - was grinning from ear to ear in his arms as he held her. It seemed her smile knew no bounds when around her brother.

You're smiling with your whole face here too Sakura…when did you stop?

Minato watched as Mebuki carefully peeled back the plastic film. She used her blunt fingernails to pull the picture from the photo album page. She was successful after some time, the area the photo had covered was a stark white compared to the rest of the yellowed-with-time page. She pressed her lips to the photo before crushing it to her chest. He looked away from the tender moment that was best left private - or at the very least among loved ones.

"Sakura doesn't bring up Sakuto on her own anymore," Mebuki's voice sounded haunting when she spoke again. Her eyes were dry but there was a sniffle in her nose. "You're injured," she noted with a frown. "You took forever putting the groceries away."

And you Ms. Haruno are all over the place. It makes it hard to follow.

"I hurt my shoulder playing basketball." He did not fight the accusation. Her claims had bases. He was too polite to point out that cleaning the food that had gone bad - left out on the counter too long - had taken more time than unloading the groceries to their place. Not to mention his being unfamiliar with everything only added to the end time for the result. Mebuki was more than happy to help and point out all the ways he was doing it wrong.

"That's not where the eggs go," she would say and not provide further instruction. "You refrigerate your ketchup?" She had asked with so much judgment one would think she caught him kicking her cat.

"Hooligan," Mebuki grunted. "Sakuto played baseball. He was very good. He could have gotten a scholarship if he wanted." She crossed her ankles. She adjusted the high neckline of her beige sweater. "He spent hours in the backyard teaching her the rules. He even made his own bases. RaRa keep your eyes on the ball. RaRa tuck in your elbows. RaRa the ball isn't scary, I promise. RaRa this and RaRa that. He said her name with every breath when they were together. He was just so happy to have a sibling. Smitten. She could get away with anything because he covered for her. Spoiled her rotten. I couldn't even discipline the girl. Not even when she broke his heart by not signing up for softball. She would have made a great pitcher. She has really good aim."

She does. Accurate.

Again, he could not share so he kept the agreement to himself.

"Why Sakura? What about her?" Mebuki asked, not allowing him to process much less reflect on what he was learning.

Cheddar moved in his lap - he learned from Mebuki's frowns that it was discouraged to move when a cat was sitting on him, it was some kind of unspoken rule. Minato ran his fingers along the gray silky hair, much to its delight. He rolled onto his belly, flopping almost. He moved his hand up and down the newly exposed turf.

What now?

"She's kind," he stated what he noticed first about her beyond the physical traits. "She's smart. She's funny. She's not afraid to speak her mind; when she chooses her battles." She did not cower or fold. "She has a good heart." He need not look further than her clinic. But it was more than that. It was the cake pop she bought a child who was eyeing it from outside the store window. Or the stickers she always had on hand for children. Or how she stopped to smile and say good morning to people no matter how much of a rush she was in. How she picked up litter that she came across, shoving it into her pockets after wrapping it in napkins if she could not find a trashcan nearby. The way she squealed in delight anytime she came across a friendly dog that she was allowed to pet - after she asked for permission. It was all those things. It was a culmination.

She's good. She's a good person.

Everything he was not.

"She's brave," he concluded. She had run toward the sounds of gunfire. He would not be here if she had not.

"Sakura's scared of everything," Mebuki waved her hand dismissively of his claims with one blunt statement of contradiction. "No one is more afraid than Sakura," she made a sound of remorse with her mouth. "She's just very good at hiding it."

Minato's brow furrowed. He was too perplexed to open his mouth to argue the contrary or request further clarification. His teeth pressed together at the picture of Mebuki rising to stand from her seat that was next to him.

"I hope you like chicken katsu. I made a lot of it."

The sentiment she left him with was even heavier than the photo album resting on the couch had become. Minato glanced down to stare at the cat who arched his back to stretch. He was no help. He jumped off the armrest of the couch and onto the floor. Cheddar chattered softly to Mebuki in what felt like a pointed discourse regarding him.

xXx

"You're awfully comfortable with having a junkie in your home," Sasori picked at his teeth with the senbon, practically until his gums bled. He was draped in her accent chair, his arm thrown off the back of it while a leg dangled from the armrest.

"Soon to be a former junkie," she corrected distractedly as she brushed her hair from her face. She could not sit still. Her guilt and nerves would not let her.

Should I text him…or call him? Would that be weird? Or would it be more weird not to check in on him? Maybe he ran into car trouble? He should have been back by now…unless…Mom got to him. Poor bastard.

"Say doc," Sasori lowered the small picture frame that he was considering - and using as a mirror because he was gross - to find her staring at him openly. "Is Barbie into redheads?"

Sakura paused. It was not out of the realm of normal when people approached her for inquiries about Ino. her best friend was gorgeous. As in, getting cards just walking down the street from modeling agencies encouraging her to have them represent her gorgeous. She was also intimidating as hell. So they came to her - small in stature, less brass and abrasive or so they assumed - to ask some rendition of that very question. But never had she been asked that question in her home before. It seemed to up the stakes a little even if it was all in her head.

You and Ino would be a major disaster, I'm not sure for who it would be worse but it would be all-around bad, for me especially.

"She's seeing someone," she lied with what she hoped was conviction. "It's getting serious."

"So?" Sasori drawled. Eyes nearly glazing over with boredom. "That's not what I asked."

"Um," she cleared her throat. "I don't think she's ever dated someone with red hair."

"You're a horrible listener," Sasori lowered the picture to the side of the seat where the armrest began. "No one said anything about dating. I hate repeating myself."

"I'm sorry," she was - for ever engaging in this back and forth. She stared at the ground. "I don't know."

"No help," Sasori sighed. He closed his eyes, leaning back nearly doubled over the armrest in what could not be good for his neck.

"You should-," she stopped midthought at the buzzing of her phone in her pocket. "It's my mom," she announced with her face toward the bedroom. "Do not follow me," she said in warning just before she slipped inside the door. The lock clicked audibly.

Sasori pressed his thumbpad to his forehead. "I don't get paid enough for this shit," he complained to the universe because Sakura was too preoccupied to listen.

"Mom?" She asked, pacing in her room. "Is everything alright?" She did not know what she was expecting, truthfully. So maybe that was why her heart was palpitating almost frantically.

"Everything is most certainly not okay!" Mebuki's voice screeched so loudly that Sakura was forced to hold her phone inches from her ear. If she did not know any better, she would have questioned herself if she accidentally hit the speakerphone button.

I knew it was a mistake! What did he do?

"What's wrong?" Sakura moved to her door with hurried movements. She was already three steps ahead mentally - grabbing her keys, and tugging on her shoes before she ran out the door to her car parked under the carport. She fumbled with the lock on her door. "Are you okay?"

"What's wrong is that you don't tell me anything!" Mebuki continued to shout angry grievances at her daughter. "And no, I am not okay. I am so disappointed in you. I'm hurt!"

What?

Sakura froze. "What?" She asked out loud.

"I know everything now, Sakura. Everything."

Everything? He told you?! Why…how…what?!

She did not have time to think just how ominous it sounded. "What do you know Mom?" She found herself asking. Assumptions were dangerous. Assumptions could cost lives. She needed to know. Everything. And Mebuki told her everything. And she had no choice but to listen; head bowed and murmuring apologies when her mother paused long enough for Sakura to get a word in.

The clock ticked away thirty minutes. Her neck protested. She was no closer to finding a way to crawl into her skin and stay there, in a protective husk. Three times. On three separate occasions, Sakura thought it was over - the dressing down she received - only to have her rapidly dwindling hopes dashed every time.

She stared at her phone, tightening her grip on it to overcompensate for the sudden urge to throw it at a wall. She pushed the air from her nostrils - roughly. Sakura yanked open her door, jostling Sasori from his nap. The man rubbed the lingering drowsiness from his face with zero traces of shame of being caught sleeping on the job - literally.

Her hands landed on her hips, she glowered at him before asking him a very pointed question. "Can you move a body discreetly?" There was zero mirth or jovialness in her tone or person.

Big, brown eyes blinked slowly at her in what she accepted as wordless confirmation. Because if she was going down, she was going to be damn sure that she took him with her.

Chapter Text

We had a plan! We had an agreement! What happened to that?

It wasn't working, I had to improvise.

So you call me! You let me handle it.

With what hand, Sakura?

He rubbed his brow with the back of a tired, greasy-covered palm, knuckles scraping against his forehead. He probably should not have asked that question and definitely not in that tone even if it got her to stop shouting questions, that she was not interested in hearing answers beyond what could be thrown back in anger, if only for a moment. The question had caused her to pause, to recalibrate. It was the beginning of the end. The tailspin into the downward spiral. She did not look back. His ears were still ringing. Every time he closed his eyes, the sound got that much louder. It became accompanied by her oh-so-angry face. Livid. She was livid. She barely contained herself until the leftovers Mebuki had sent along with him were stowed away and Sasori was on the other side of the sliding glass door - the man had insisted on going down the fire escape that was accessible from her balcony - before unloading on him. And unload she had. Before just fifty-three minutes ago he was not aware it was possible to hold onto such anger for so long and still maintain coherence.

What a fool I was. Ignorant.

Today he learned. Today he learned so much that it felt like a small miracle that his head did not split open from the gap between his sunshine-yellow brows down to the nape of his neck. His teeth moved to press together with enough force for the discomfort to be felt. The floorboards creaked but he did not look up from the task at hand. His hands were coated with gunpowder. A layer of grocery market ads covered the surface of the coffee table which was adorned with various tools he needed to clean the only mess he could at the moment: his gun. A gun he had not provided after-shooting care to. It was neglect on his part. Even if his arm was screaming at him - and his hand was less than cooperative - he kept at it. He needed to keep his hands busy to keep his mind from ruminating too much. On her. On her outrage. On his part in it all.

He felt only slight twinges of guilt that she had caught him attending to the very gun that soiled her hands with culpability. He had thought she had gone down for the night. And putting this off any longer would be a detriment. They could not afford the weapon jamming on them when they needed it the most. With a grimace and restrained grunt, he pulled the slide back. A quick curl around the trigger had it snapping back in place - completely aligned. Smooth.

What's done is done.

She did not move from the edge of the short hallway. He sighed and set the gun on the table. He began to gather the cleaning supplies and return them to the black bag Sasori had brought him when he dropped off his clothes. He would clean those later because it appeared that she was not done with getting everything off of her chest for him to collect and carry. The ad papers were folded and tucked into a plastic bag at his feet, to be burned so they could not end up as evidence.

"Did you forget?" He asked dryly with more than a little wounded pride, no longer accepting of being watched silently and judged louder still. Was it too much to ask for a man to brood in peace? Or was her reload time just that much faster than his? "Did you forget to say something earlier when you were salting the earth?" The bag zipped closed. He lowered it to the foot of the couch. His hands were still tacky.

As he was still not facing her, he missed the eye roll but the huff that left her - somewhere between a scoff of incredulity and annoyance - he was very much in his purview. It was as if he could feel it moving through the air, warming the ambient temperature even more than the raging furnace. He began to clean his hands with paper towels that had more than the occasional grease or powder stain. He leaned back into the cushions, tilting his head all the way against the back of the couch.

There was a soft thud from somewhere in front of him. He closed his eyes. Her scent - her aroma of vanilla and amber - filled his nostrils without permission. The thought of bringing his hands to his face crossed his mind fleetingly.

Might as well wave the grease-filled paper-towel flag.

"I need to check your bandages and you for cuts," her voice was without the blunt edge of a cleaver that was used to hack him into pieces; pieces that he was still in the midst of collecting. Her usually sharp tongue had wanted him to prolong the suffering.

"I didn't open any stitches," his brow furrowed as the words left him. He would have felt it. Sure he was sore and tender but that was the extent of it.

I overdid it.

But he did not need to bother her with the details of that. Her mother gave Sakura more than enough ideas.

"Cheddar," she supplied with confidence that her answer satisfied his query.

Minato blinked open his eyes, his chin moved down until he was at eye level with her. Sakura was leaning forward with her hands on her knees. But a nose's distance away. His stance was held in place by wariness. He would not be lulled into a false sense of security.

"Here," she handed him an open package of wipes-alcoholic judging by the smell.

"Thank you." He proceeded to clean most of the residue from his fingers and palms. He paid special attention to avoid his knuckles. He had removed his bandages before setting out to clean the gun. He took his time. She did not so much as speak or rush him. He tucked the no-longer damp wipe into his pocket because handing it back just seemed ungrateful and rude - presumptuous. "I'm okay," he insisted, feeling slightly embarrassed he had misjudged her intentions.

Potential intentions.

Because the sting was very much akin to pain in his shoulder. It was still around. Fresh.

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest and frowned at him. A divet formed between her brows. She narrowed her eyes and that almost had him closing his - feigning sudden exhaustion.

I understand possums now.

"Stop being a tough macho man and let me see what the damn cat did to you, already. Before you contract an infection that causes even more problems," she said somewhere between annoyed and apologetic. "Cat nails are thin. They get in deeper," she continued to present her case when faced with his interpretable silence. Overcompensating on behalf of his lack of engagement. "He's basically still feral." Sakura knew next to nothing about cats - a product of her brother being allergic and her household being strictly no-pets when she was growing up, no matter how much she pleaded her case for a puppy or a bunny - but a little over a year hardly seemed like a lot of time to domesticate an adult stray that showed up on her mother's porch one day and refused to leave. The scrawny, flea-infested thing tried to barter with leaves and rocks for passage through the two sets of doors that were more often than not unsympathetic. And it worked. It worked awfully well for him.

"Cheddar didn't hurt me," Minato found himself saying words he never thought he would say. They sounded every bit as ridiculous as they felt to say.

She gaped at him. Shamelessly, with her mouth closing and opening like a fish. She pulled back her red sleeve, aggressively in haste to not lose any momentum built by the implied absurdity of his statement. She pointed to a faint scar about three inches long. It melted into the crook of her elbow.

"Cheddar," she said, matter-of-fact. But she was not done, so he remained a silent spectator to the unfolding evidence. Next, her foot - with peeling red polish on her toes - entered his line of sight; propped up on the coffee table he saw a curved scar on the top of her skin. She had high arches. "Cheddar," she said again in that same manner of tone. She all but shoved her hands under his nose. He leaned back instinctively. He saw the tiny scars crisscrossing just centimeters from his face; his vision blurred as if his eyes had crossed.

"Cheddar?" He asked impassively, face blank and unchanging in its lack of expressed emotion.

Sakura nodded her head, emphatically. "He's the devil incarnate."

So hyperbole is commonplace in your lexicon.

The discovery made him feel better. Marginally.

"It looks like Cheddar doesn't like you very much." What possessed him to assemble the words in that manner, he was not sure. "You do know he's gray and not orange right?" He asked, quick to move on from his potential instigation.

Is color blindness genetic?

"When my mom first got him, he would sit on her sliced cheese every time she left it on the counter. Just the cheese." Sakura shook her head at him with her hands on her hips. "He goes crazy for cheese."

I guess that makes sense if you squint and don't think hard about it.

"And for your information, Cheddar doesn't like anyone. He only tolerated Mom in the beginning because she gave him cheese, amongst other things," she added with a huff of frustration. It was warranted. Cheddar gained seven pounds since he joined the Haruno household. The average weight for a tabby was around ten pounds as Cheddar's vets told her repeatedly with judgment as if she were the one shaving years off of his life with his lifestyle. "It's reverse Stockholm Syndrome. He just showed up one day out of the blue and won't leave."

Minato raised a blond brow in question. In question, if he was supposed to read further into her rather pointed quip or not. One that she noticed and acknowledged with a tsk. "The cat," she clarified with next to no amusement. "Not everything is about you," exasperation clung to her words heavily. "From your experience, you should know that I prefer to handle my misgivings with you a little differently, with a touch more directness," her lips pulled into a smirk. The wink was just overkill.

That's one way of putting it.

"Now," she sighed deeply, shedding the act, "stop stalling and show me," she curled her fingers toward herself to encourage him to move quicker. "Come on!"

He laughed, the rest of the tension from earlier escaping along with the sound. "You have a creative way of asking me to take off my clothes," he teased because he could not help himself - something about her just drew it out of him.

"It's nothing I haven't seen before," she rolled her eyes, quickly reaching the end of her patience with him and maybe the fact that her face was starting to turn pink - betraying all her efforts to mask what was on the inside. His words did hold effect. "Seeing how we've been seeing each other for ten months now. You don't strike me as the type to hold out for marriage."

Here we go again.

Was the dig - he assumed it was a dig - about his character necessary?

"So you did forget something," he turned his head to the side. He stared at the brass table lamp with the white marble base on the dark end table, moodily. "I already apologized." Repeatedly.

"You did," Sakura mused in agreement. "I'm not here to fight or argue," she claimed with a sigh, pushing away the plastic lavender bowl that was sitting on the table.

He noticed it just now, along with a clean washcloth on the edge. White and pristine. He had been so busy with first avoiding her to notice and then when the barrier was broken, he did not want to notice anything but her. That was the answer. But it was rather pathetic and flowery so he pretended to be unaware.

"Why are you here?" He asked her, facing her head on and without blinking. He was tired; too tired for games and signals that would leave his brain wired trying to untangle and decipher. If he needed a night to sleep like the dead, it was tonight. But it was out of his hands and at her mercy.

"To apologize," she sat back on the table. She gestured vaguely in the direction of, well, everything with a lack of enthusiasm. Begrudgingly almost. Embarrassed. A peace offering as reluctant as it was was still an offering. "Can you please just let me examine your shoulder?" Her lips set themselves in worry. Unfabricated. "You must be in pain," she emphasized.

She was not wrong. There was only so much ice and heat could do. With a soft sigh of resignation, Minato opened the teeth of his white hoodie with the sliding down of the zipper. He leaned forward, peeling himself off the support of the furniture's back. The ends of Sakura's hair touched his skin as she helped him slip out of the left arm of the jacket. Her hands began to unwrap the joint. Quickly.

"I haven't been fair to you," her voice was textured and slightly distant. Minato stared ahead as she worked to free him of the bindings. If she noticed it was not a deterrent. "Today and before today." She paused to catch his eyes. Deliberately. He saw remorse staring back at him. Openly. "It's not your fault I went down those steps. It's not your fault that I put myself in this situation."

His teeth pressed together once more because it was his fault. He never should have been there in the first place.

"It may not seem like much," she continued on with a reflective tone. "But it's my life. I miss not seeing my friends every day. I miss being in the ER. I miss the smell of the hospital, the hum of the lights, the cool of the AC. Wearing scrubs and my coat with my name on it. I miss it. And I am angry to be away from my life, from all that. So I deflected and put that anger on you. When all you are trying to do is keep me safe."

He stayed quiet. How could she know his intentions when he was not ready to admit them to himself? Not fully. Not entirely. He slowly moved - her hand guiding him - until his back was warmed by the heat he had left in the sofa cushions.

"I was difficult. I was argumentative. I was making it harder for both of us. I was awful. I was unfair," she continued to list her transgressions. Unprompted.

The surface of the still water in the purple basin was broken. She wrung the small white towel until it was not dripping with extra moisture. The couch cushion next to him sank just before the wet towel made contact with his hot skin.

"The suture site is aggravated." She blotted the surgical thread. The skin it held together was purple, angry, and puff. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he muttered, finding himself unable to hold her gaze.

You don't have to apologize.

"It's not." She shook her head. Before he could ask what happened about not arguing with the goal of lightening the charged air - the remnants of a storm passed - she was speaking again. "I'm sorry for my behavior, for making things difficult. And for keeping you from your life."

It's not your fault.

The cool towel brought relief. The burning and the itchiness were not as pronounced with each passing second of her attention.

"I'm sorry too, Sakura," he said the words he had said before but felt so different to say in this passing moment.

"For what?" She asked with traces of uneasy playfulness - with underlying fear asking such a thing would open a can of worms neither of them wanted to deal with. They had cleaned up enough messes for one day. "You're not the one who raised their voice or spoke harshly."

Soft words of indifference can cut just as much if not more.

"For not being more patient," he clarified so nothing could be corrupted with misinterpretation. "For not communicating more clearly."

"You were kind of passive-aggressive, huh?" She asked with her lips donning a shell of a smile for a blink of an eye. He nodded his head. "Why did you tell her that you're my boyfriend?" She asked the question much more calmly this time around. She also paused to give him a chance to answer in yet another contrast to before. Pink filled the left side of his peripherals.

"She wouldn't have let me in otherwise," he answered honestly but even so, he felt his skin jump under her fingertips like they had the same properties of a polygraph. The hand that was not holding the towel was moving down his arm. Fingers feeling, traveling over old cuts and wounds, on their way to find new ones. So slowly. Almost leisurely. Confoundingly.

"Hm," she was closer now. Encroaching on his seat. Her eyes were focused very intently on the black stitches, maybe she did not notice the positioning of the rest of her in her seemingly single-minded focus. "You're probably right. I overreacted," a further admission of guilt.

Do you not feel that?

The way her knee was pressed firmly against him.

"Why," he paused to collect himself. Surely she had felt his heart rate pick up through the veins she was mapping so carefully, committing their placement to memory in a map only she understood the legend of. "Why did you get so angry?"

He probably should have worded it better. But he was distracted. By her. It was far from his best work. Her green eyes rose to find his. If they had not captivated him so thoroughly, he would have noticed a slight flush to her cheeks. Pink.

"It's stupid." She lowered her eyes, taking her bottom lip between her teeth. She moved it back and forth. Perls containing a rose petal. "Childish."

"Tell me anyway," he bandaged hand circled her wrist, stopping the movements of her thumb on his inner wrist.

You're being difficult again. Difficult to focus on what you're saying.

He was very interested in hearing what she had to say even if he failed to communicate it verbally.

"You're," she expelled hot air. She shook her head, clearing the invisible slate that she had marked with the word, the beginning of a sentiment. "I've never had a boyfriend. So I never brought one home." The heat and the color had reached the tip of her ears. His silence only added to her encompassing embarrassment. "So I freaked out, okay?" She tried to pull her hand free from his. His grip tightened in response. Now, whether it was instinct or desperation he was not entirely sure. He did not have time to spare it a second thought.

"I'm sorry," the words rushed out. "I didn't know."

She laughed, still avoidant. "It's not really something I advertise. I'm over thirty. I've never had a relationship. I think I've only been on a second date like three times in my life. Never a third." She was rambling now and unable to stop herself from completely spilling her guts. The washcloth under her hand on the top of his shoulder dripped water down his front. Slowly. Agonizingly. "You must think I'm a total weirdo or completely psychotic-"

"I've never had a relationship either," he cut her off, pushing past the dryness in his throat.

"What?" She frowned at him, finally looking him in the eyes. "You don't have to lie to make me feel better. It's fine. I know it's not normal."

"No," he shook his head. There was barely any movement. He did not want to lose track of her gaze, to give her an excuse to look away again. "It was never a priority. It was never an option before." There was no real interest before. Sure there was that redhead with hair that grazed her calves and her boundless, bright violet eyes that could hold the galaxies. She was beautiful. A distantly related niece of Tsunade's on her grandmother's side or something. But the timing was just not there.

Amongst other things.

Things he was too preoccupied with experiencing to draw back away from enough to categorize.

"Is…," she hesitated. Her hand twitched in his. "Is it an option now?"

"Potentially," he said without hesitation. "Current and prior circumstances notwithstanding, yes," he said, not losing another moment to ambiguity.

"Hm," she moved her hand from his shoulder. "My mom said you were really patient with her. She had a nice time. Thank you." She smiled at him. It was a little timid, a little shy, with what lacked in conviction it made up for in warmth.

"It was the least I could do. I just listened."

"It's been a while since someone has I suppose," her smile slipped into the realm of melancholy. Her eyes lowered before she tracked them back up. "She probably told you all kinds of embarrassing things about me, didn't she?" She asked with substantially more lightness. There was a sparkle in her eyes that sent something down his spine. He felt it in his toes.

You couldn't say your S's when you were learning how to talk and even when you started school. To prevent discouragement your brother started calling you RaRa so you didn't have to struggle through your own name. Because you hated the way 'Akura' sounded.

'Like give up!'

That tidbit of her mother had recalled stuck with him. That and the almost pigtail snip story. He was glad Sakura did not give that little boy the time of day. Apparently, they were in the same class all the way up to when she graduated high school. And from Mebuki's retelling, the boy had not grown up at all.

"You were a cute kid." He reached out to pinch her cheek. "Chubby." He waited with a grin on his face for hers to change. And change it did. The smile slipped off before her lips parted until her jaw hung open, loose.

She scoffed, visibly offended. "I was not!" Her voice was but a whine. "She showed you pictures?" She moved to cover her hands with her face. She was still holding the towel which was now both warmer and drier.

So many.

Mebuki promised to have more at the ready the next time he visited. "You made for a very convincing bee."

"God!" Sakura groaned in mortification. "Stop it," she whined weakly, pouting at the chuckle that reached her ears.

"It wasn't all that bad," he worked to placate her. He still did not know the line. He did not want to tease to the point that real feelings were hurt in all this playful jest. "Probably nothing worse than what Hora told you about me," he could not keep the smile he wore on his face out of his voice.

"He didn't tell me anything," Sakura lowered her hands just enough for him to see her eyes. Bright and clear.

"Liar, liar." He was smirking outright now. "You gave him sugar."

He was practically bouncing off the walls…but it won't be my problem. For once.

"Was I not supposed to?" She asked rhetorically, wiping up the moisture with a different towel; finding a reason to avoid his eyes all over again. She grabbed the back of the sofa with one arm for balance while stretching out for the coffee table. He noticed a small plastic tub with a navy blue lid. She was inches short of her target. He hooked a foot around a leg of the table and he pulled it toward them, grunting.

"That was reckless," she admonished him. "I was just being lazy. I would have gotten up."

"Just trying to help," he smiled through the pangs of discomfort of his less-than-thought-out decisions.

"Well, no one asked you to, so just stop being you. It makes my job harder," she griped with put-on agitation. She had the tub between her hands. She pressed a thumb to pop open the lid. "Hold please."

"Me being myself makes your job harder?" He asked with a cocked brow. His fingers wrapped around hers before she pulled them away, leaving just the cold plastic instead of her warm, slightly calloused skin.

"Sometimes," she said with a solemn nod. "Only when you don't listen," she added with aplomb. Similarly to how she had applied the jelly onto his cut knuckles just a day ago, she scooped with her left and spread with her right. The skin and stitches became coated with a tacky, thick, substance. He was suddenly holding off sleep. "Rest," she commented, once she noticed. "You were on your feet all day." There was an unsaid apology in there somewhere. He did not have to look too hard to find it.

"I'm alright."

"Is this the first time you've been shot?" She tapped along the perimeter of the tender skin. The jelly caused the black ink to shine like oil. Glistening obsidian. A gap in the scales of the dragon would form from where the skin was blown apart. There was nothing she could do other than minimize the damage of what was lost.

"It is," he admitted with reluctance of where such a thing might lead.

"Sasori said you don't use your gun often." Or at all, according to the man. But she needed corroboration. One way or the other.

Hora. You and your loose gums.

"I don't." He was looking up at the ceiling, head tilted back over the edge of the sofa. His stomach was turning so much the chicken katsu might not stay where it belonged. A horrifying realization.

"You're a lieutenant."

What's done is done. There's no putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

"I am." There was no pride anywhere to be found. He felt her tap his shoulder. He let her help him lean forward. She began to wrap his shoulder with a fresh set of bandages. "Does it bother you?"

"Does what bother me?" She was moving quickly, with more purpose than she had before.

"That I have a gun. That there's a gun in your home."

That I'm here.

"Yes." She leaned back. She began the process of wiping her fingers with the discarded damp towel. He could see small flecks of red. Blood. Fresh.

I didn't feel it.

"But it can't be helped," she rose to her feet with a sigh. "I'll get you some more painkillers. And ice."

He watched her leave the room until she was hidden away by the ajar freezer door.

"And while we're both being agreeable and accommodating," her voice called out obstructed as she spoke to the ice box. "I have a proposition for you."

His brows rose to touch his hairline. He could make even less of her now than he did then.

The bed sheets spun, rising to the top of the machine before tumbling down only to be carried back up into the next cycle. She could see the reds, blacks, and blues - recognizing certain articles of clothing in the machine next to the white spinning sheet that was close to giving her motion sickness. Her green eyes made nearly flat in the reflection were just about the only thing she recognized. She scratched her head which was covered by a black ballcap. Her nose scrunched in response to the itch not being alleviated. the synthetic fibers pricked the skin of her cheeks and neck. Oh, how she longed to directly scratch her scalp. It would be so unbelievably satisfying.

It's so itchy.

"You're making it obvious." A heavy hand pressed to the top of her head discouraging and preventing her from chasing relief.

Sakura glared at his reflection through the dryer window. "It itches," she complained.

"You said you would be good," he reminded her not unkindly.

I would have promised you a pony if it meant being outside.

"This is me being good," she moved her sneakers against the polished floors, purposely trying to enhance the squeaking sound. It was too quiet. "I thought the wig was just for the car. The cameras at the toll bridge." She was thinking and speaking like a criminal now. Sakura's eyes searched for cameras first. She had counted no less than five in the laundromat. Her eyes kept moving between them like a morbid game of pinball. "I thought it would be fine here. This is a clan business right?"

I've never been to this part of town before.

Minato lowered his hand to his side, indecisive about whether or not he wanted to return it to his pocket. His cut knuckles were without bandages; the wound had healed enough to be exposed to the elements. She kept the comment about friction against scabs to herself in what she told herself was a sign of emotional maturity.

"This laundromat is affiliated with the clan."

So not run by the clan then.

She noted the distinction. Minato sometimes said more with what he did not say than what he actually did. Most of the time in her rather short experience. The figureheads were only associated with the clan in some way. Maybe they owed a favor. Or maybe they paid for protection services this way.

Wonder how they ended up here.

"It was nice to feel the sun again," she held his gaze.

Even if it was through a car window.

A red face towel fell from the top curve of the machine, vying for her attention but she remained steadfast in her focus. "Thank you." She smiled at him. It had taken over an hour - the first of the load she had folded and put back in the laundry basket for the tension to ease away from his shoulders. His eyes never stopped moving.

He's not comfortable here.

"It was the least I could do." His fingers moved to the cigarette perched on his ear. A habit she noted.

"Is your shoulder bothering you?" She turned around before she asked him. "I could have driven."

Did you not want me to memorize the turns? Because I did.

Even if he had not used GPS and relied on the side streets in probably what added to their journey.

"Your car is tied to you," he explained not for the first time, patiently. "It's easier to trace. It's harder to do with clan cars."

You have an answer for everything.

They had fake plates. Or plates associated with public clan members that were on the up and up. Politicians, soccer moms, the owners of an optometry shop, or a used car dealer. And while he did not outright say it, he would not let her drive clan - company - property. The risk was not worth it.

"My shoulder is fine," he returned her smile she had no recollection of putting on.

"I have to admit," she moved in a small circle, her arms clasped together behind her back. "I am surprised that there is no mention of you in any of the articles I looked up." Sleep was avoiding her bed. She needed something to occupy her time and her mind which were eating away at her. Slowly. "Not by name or description."

No traces of you.

"I know how to hide in plain sight," he walked to the plastic chairs at the entrance of the laundromat. He slowly sank into one. His back to the row of windows. The sun had long set for the day. It barely stayed up in the sky as the days continued to lose more and more time to the night.

You're tired. Probably exhausted.

"You're not worried about the cameras here?"

"They're decoys. Like most of the cameras down at the subway. I shot out the legitimate ones."

That explains some things. Also confirms Sasori's claim about you being a dead shot.

Cameras would be a liability in an establishment such as this, where most of the clientele were associated with Akatsuki in some shape or form. Having the decoys installed at least kept up appearances. They could claim real cameras were too expensive to install and maintain.

"You've been searching?" His voice asked without judgment or scorn.

Yes. Sometimes. Not knowing isn't working anymore…it never did.

"Here and there." She could only read about the events - in chunks. Watching the TV - the news - was still too much to ask for. Sakura sighed, she shuffled her feet until she was standing near his seated frame. She looked out the window. Something she had taken for granted before. She took in the skyline. Trying to etch the stars into her mind. "Any word?" She asked, already having more than an inkling of an answer.

Is there anything you can tell me? Anything at all?

"Sakura," he said her name with a sigh.

"Be patient," she finished the sentiment that he was unable to start. "I know."

I'm trying.

"You didn't ask me about him," she blinked, her lashes felt heavy. Foreign. It was as if she was watching herself; all that much closer to disassociating.

I don't want to be in my head. I'm tired of overthinking. I'm tired of my brain never shutting off.

"It's not really my place," Minato leaned his head back against the panel of glass. Completely vulnerable from the back. He made for an easy target.

I hate that I even thought of that.

Her clothes continued to churn in the high-speed dyer. Sakura sat in the chair next to him, her knees pressed together.

"Will my mom be okay?" Her hands folded together, needing something to hold onto.

"Blood feuds are rare even between clans of the Akatsuki anymore. Unheard of outside of it," he turned his head with intent to hold her eyes. "She will be fine. I promise you."

Anymore…meaning they once were in the syndicate?

"Okay," she believed him. She had to believe him. It was all she had.

Okay.

Her slippers dragged against the linoleum, to the hardwood until he could not hear them over the small plush rug. The journey was short but he had kept his eyes on her up to the point that he was all but forced to look away. He could not risk her catching him staring.

"I'm back," she announced in a sing-song voice. She settled into the open seat next to him. The middle cushion.

"No bowls," he tilted his head in the direction of the small pint she held in her hand with two metal spoons in the other.

"Two less things to wash," she folded her legs under her. She held out a spoon for him to take, which he did. "What's this?" She furrowed her brows at the TV.

"I thought we could try something different." He partially moved the pink throw off of his lap and moved it to cover hers as it had been before she went off to get them ice cream.

Sakura removed the lid from the container and peeled off the film. A perfect layer of ice cream beckoned to be etched away by the metal spoons. She leaned forward to place them on the coffee table. She settled back on the couch, wiggling to get comfortable. "This sudden epiphany for the change," she tapped the curve of the spoon against her bottom lip. She watched as a woman sweating from the brow cut onions at blinding speed. "Wouldn't have to do with the fact I keep giving you microwaved leftovers, does it?"

He chuckled. "Not at all." He dug his spoon into the soft ice cream. He maneuvered until he got a sizable chunk of partial chocolate cookie. "I'm not that subtle."

Sakura pushed air from her nostrils loud enough to be heard. She followed his lead and scooped up ice cream before depositing it in her mouth. In that moment that already passed, she was thankful that he was a liar. He was subtle. Her night terror from the previous evening had been horrible. She had woken up screaming. Her neighbor had knocked on the door to check on her this morning. So maybe a change was necessary.

I should have gotten whipped cream too when I got up…but then he would have seen me shoot it into my mouth directly from the canister like an animal.

The dilemmas she faced on her daily challenges were great.

"Do they really have to make an entree with gummy bears?" She made a face at the thought.

"They really do," Minato answered solemnly. "See the one with the scarf? I think he's the one to keep an eye on."

"Really?" Sakura brought more ice cream to her mouth. It melted on her tongue. She chewed on the cookie bits. "He's super methodical," she noted the bowls - she wondered if they had large dishwashers - that were filled with ingredients all lined up neatly as everyone else seemed to be running with their heads cut off. "He's slow."

"He's in control. He's calm," Minato provided additional perspective. "He's not reacting to anyone. He's making everyone react to him."

Calm.

She let out a small hum. She held her spoon back just as he came back for more. She kept her eyes on the TV, pretending not to notice his on her.

"Sakura, please don't take this the wrong way…," he began. The cooking competition had cut to a commercial.

No promises.

"Okay," she nodded her head, denoting he was free to continue with a receptive audience.

"Can you not lock your door when you sleep?" He said the words softly as if the volume was the very thing that made them controversial. She supposed that was also why he formed it as a question even if it was closer to a suggestion at best and a demand at worst. "I'm not really in a state to be kicking down doors."

If Ms. Honda can hear me screaming, she would definitely be able to hear a door being kicked in.

"I'll think about it," was the best she could offer him at this time.

"Okay." Minato turned his attention back to the TV. His spoon was completely vertical in his hand. "The show is back," he informed unnecessarily. She was watching intently, mind miles away.

xXx

The wind was cold against his skin, turning it red in mere seconds. His hands curled around the faded wooden banister. Splinters were the furthest thing from his mind. The view was hardly spectacular. He could see the carport. Sakura's red car was parked right under the numbers that denoted her apartment: 2-C. He made a mental note to start her car for her tomorrow to avoid the battery draining completely. All after an extensive sweep of the car. It was not the Uchiha's style to blow things up but the same could have been said for public shootouts. Nothing could be assumed. Not anymore.

Nothing is stable.

The ladder to the fire escape was folded. There was some solace that the sound would wake her if someone tried to use that avenue to break in. It would buy them some additional time to get out through the door in the kitchen. The emergency escape plan that he went over with her. She humored him with every repetition. His eyes never stopped moving. He ignored the couple fighting loudly in the lot. Screaming. They were screaming at each other uncaring who they subjected to their public, mutual meltdown. Even at the worst end of her vocal spectrum, he did not find Sakura's voice half as annoying - grating, taxing, ear-bleeding - as theirs. The pitch nearly caused a headache to form behind his brows.

With one final sweep of the area for the day, Minato turned around. He was careful that the door was fully latched before he slid the metal lock with the completely broken plastic guard in place. A small green ring let him know it was locked and the status of the sensor could be monitored on Sakura's laptop. He bent forward to lay a long block of wood - just two inches shorter than the length of one of the doors - on the tracks. Now, if someone really wanted to get in, they would have to break the single-panel glass. And there was no way he was going to sleep through that. Or the neighbors as they seemed rather involved. It was more of a challenge than he had anticipated, keeping his coming and going - along with Sasori's (the man had red hair for goodness sake) - under their radar. The last thing she needed was more questions and adversities to overcome.

Minato adjusted the curtains so there was zero chance of anyone being able to look inside. With one last tug of the two separate panels of the curtain, he turned to face the door. The window in the bathroom was too small for anyone to crawl through. But even that he had made sure was latched shut and that the windowstop was tightened to the sill. Death by gas was not completely out of the question if they got desperate enough to appease their ego - his ego.

He opened the door, blinking twice in short succession to find her across the way with her back against the half-bath door, closer than he had anticipated. A question was posed on her face. Her arms were crossed. Her black nightshirt completely swallowed her.

"It's clear," he gave verbal confirmation of the status. She would know if it was not clear. It would be painfully clear. Alarmingly clear.

"Good night," she stepped forward as he stepped to the right.

"Good night," he said to the soft closing of the door. "Sweet dreams," this sentiment came out quieter, softer as it was not for her ears to hear. He was on the couch, pulling the covers over him when he heard a distinctive sound that caused disappointment to settle into him. She had locked her door and it had been louder than a nine-millimeter round fired - the same size of the bullet she dug out of him - in an enclosed space; completely undermining any chance of the parting sentiment she had left him taking root.

She stirred the eggs, lowering the temperature yet again on the induction stoves. She broke up the slightly darker-than-appetizing brown chunk into even smaller pieces. She frowned as she pulled out a substantially sized eggshell. She practically jumped in the air at the toast popping from the toaster. She grabbed a plate and sprinted to it. The vent fan spun at too low of a setting to make any noticeable difference.

"How in the world?" She stared at the essentially white side and the burned underbelly. "I forgot to rotate them!" She slapped her forehead with her hand, sending egg chunks all over her kitchen because she was still holding onto the blue spatula.

"Crap," she murmured as she chanced a glance over her shoulder. Minato had not moved. But that hardly meant anything. Maybe he was just playing possum long enough for her to have something on the table so he did not get dragged into the madness. Or he took pity on her. Whatever came first. She did not blame him. She could not blame him.

Hard for a surprise to be surprised when there's only so much square footage.

Sakura moved back to the stovetop where the eggs were sizzling at her - screaming that they were about to turn into a chewy, leathery, inedible mess. She raised the nonstick pan with a red handle. She turned off the dial and moved to where she had left the sage-colored plate. She dumped all of them onto the otherside. She hummed to herself. It also served another purpose, it would force him to acknowledge what the smells - because she was not delusional enough to label the slightly burning stench as aroma - could not.

Wakey, wakey, Blondie.

She grabbed one of the slices of toast on her way to the sink. She pulled open a drawer, blindingly searching for a butterknife. She flipped it over so that the dark side was up. She began to scrape it. She only had the end pieces left. She figured slightly powdery toast was preferred over toasted end pieces. It was just a guess. The scraped-off bits dusted the bottom of her sink. She lowered the toast into the plate, swapping it for its sibling. She repeated the process. Just as she was about to slather butter on the bread, she heard him stir.

"Good morning!" She smiled brightly. "Go brush your teeth. Breakfast is just about ready!"

"Morning," he answered back softly, rubbing sleep from his eyes. His hair was disheveled and his sweats wrinkled. Adorable. Minato was downright adorable first thing in the morning.

Without even trying. Not a single drool stain. The man doesn't even snore.

She had yet to find one flaw - beyond the glaring, obvious one inked all across his back, arms and upper chest of course.

The half-bath door closing gave her all the clues she needed that her request was being heeded. She carried on humming her tune as she buttered on the side of the toast, hoping what her offering lacked in presentation made up for in flavor.

"Brown food tastes good," she placated nerves that she was not expecting to experience. The judge of the cooking competition had said that and from the brown spots all over the eggs and the bread, her food must taste really, really good.

"Maybe it would have been better with bacon?" She questioned herself much too late. Not that she had bacon on hand. Ino's long tirades against the drawbacks of pork lived rent-free in Sakura's head every time she was at the grocery store. "Oh!" Her face brightened. She pulled open the fridge door. She rummaged through the last bottom drawer on the right. She palmed a tomato. It was slightly on the softer side but she could work with it. With a swing of her hips, she closed the fridge. She washed the tomato under the tap. With wet, dripping hands a paper towel was pulled from the roll. She dried the fruit. Cutting it in half and depositing it on his plate. She held her culinary creation in her hands, eyeing it critically. She even rotated it to see it from all angles.

Not half bad.

She lowered the plate in front of the chair closest to the living room.

There!

"Orange juice!" She reminded herself of what it was missing. She busied herself with getting his glass ready. By the time she turned around, he was standing behind the chair. "Sit, sit!" She gestured with her hands, ushering him along into cooperation.

"What's all this?" Minato asked despite having every context clue available to him; from the stained green apron she wore to the not-so-contained mess behind her. The distinct aroma of coffee mixed with everything else left her with even less of an appetite.

"Breakfast," Sakura answered with hints of exasperation, her chipper mood giving way to a moment of blatant honesty. "A thank you for all the breakfast you've been providing." She held her breath as she tried to discern if the look on his face was closer to perturbed or cautiously intrigued. "Scrambled eggs and toast," she clasped one hand in the other over the front of the apron. "With a side of tomato!"

"I see," he said slowly, which only added to her growing unease.

This was a bad idea. A really bad idea. I should have just made him cereal.

That was nearly impossible to mess up. In a way, this was entirely his fault. The episodes they had watched built up her interest - her desire - to try things out on her own. It was not that she did not know how to cook - she was a human adult and cooking was a life skill - it had been a while since she last stepped into the kitchen with the intention to do more than reheat something. She was busy. She just reallocated her time to things she deemed more important: doing her laundry and sleeping. But now she had time. So why not?

The soft sound of the chair moving, pulled her from her thoughts. She tried - and potentially failed - to mask the eagerness with which she had inhaled when he picked up the fork.

"Wait!" She threw out her arms. Minato, to his credit, did not drop the fork in surprise. Instead, he regarded her with a raised brow in muted curiosity. "The finishing touch!" Sakura whirled around. She was opening the fridge and reaching for something all the while she could feel the heat on her face. The cold air inside the fridge did nothing to alleviate the rising temperatures. The door closed with a soft slam. She walked over to the table and without asking, she flicked the pop-top open and squeezed velvety-thick ketchup all over his eggs - not even sparing some of his toast as the bottle squirted loudly.

Perfect.

"Thanks," he said, proceeding to clear his throat.

She tilted the bottle and closed the top. Sakura watched wordlessly, feeling each of the nerves those contestants must have felt when his fork containing brown eggs with some yellow - slathered with bright red ketchup - was brought to his lips. They parted, the fork and the food went in and only the fork came back out. He chewed. She waited. He chewed again. She waited even more with the ketchup bottle hugged to her. Her heart sank when he lowered the fork. He started to cough against his curled fist. It started innocently enough. But it did not take long for his sun-kissed skin to turn red.

Water. Get him water!

The voice in her head had more sense than her. Sakura set the ketchup bottle on the table. With a growing sense of panic, Sakura tore open the cabinet where she kept her glassware. She reached for the first one she could get her hands on. The tap was turned on. She did not even wait for it to be filled more than halfway. The water sloshed. She guided it to his hand. He had not stopped coughing the entirety of the time. Together, the two of them brought it to his lips. He drank. A sip. Then two. Before she knew it, he had drained the glass. She stood, demoralized, watching as he dried his mouth with the back of his hand.

I almost killed him…by accident!

"How much heat did you put in them?" He wheezed out the question with all of his willpower, his fist against his sternum. Cobalt-colored eyes were watering anew while the previous tears had been pushed out midway down his high cheek-boned face.

He didn't even cry when he got shot! Or the stitches.

"Not a lot or anything!" She said quickly, shaking her head back and forth. "I wanted it to have some flavor," she explained lamely and with copious amounts of guilt. She had full custody of the glass. She made her way to the sink to fill it again. "The lady on the show didn't put enough of the red powder and they sent her home for it," she spoke over the running water, her back to him.

No one likes bland eggs…right?

"What did you use?" He cleared his throat for the umpteenth time in a continued attempt to clear his airways of agitation. The tap turned off.

"Um," Sakura snatched the spice container from the counter. "This," she shoved both toward his hand - the glass and the spice.

Minato reached for the container. His blond brow was bunched together, and his jaw was visibly tight. "This is Cayenne," he said slowly, turning the container so that the label was toward her.

And your point?

"I know," she retorted, defensively. She knew how to read. She lowered the glass to the table so that she could cross her arms to make it official.

"The woman from last night's episode used chili powder."

"So?" She met his eyes with unshakable belief. "They're the same."

"No," Minato stressed, slowly. "They are not." His voice did not fluctuate once. Even cadence at a low volume.

"Cayenne is a chili. It's red. Chili powder is made of chilies - also red. I didn't have chili powder so I improvised. They are interchangeable. You're overreacting," she lowered a palm onto the smooth marble. She leaned forward reaching for his discarded fork.

"Sakura," he warned her.

"You're just being a big baby," she stabbed some of the eggs with more force than needed, sending some bits flying off the plate and onto the placemat. She did not stop until the fork was filled to capacity to really drive her point home. She sopped up the red sauce, slathering the eggs in it. "I can't even handle spicy food and I'm about to show you just how dramatic you are."

Mister tough-guy, yeah right.

"Sakura, don-"

She shoved the eggs into her mouth before he could finish his sentiment that was uttered with concern. Minato sighed in resignation. He leaned back in his chair, watching with flat eyes as she chewed.

"See?" She spoke with her mouth full. She snagged a piece of mutilated toast smattered with globs of butter from off his plate. It was fine. If he did not appreciate her cooking, she would eat it all. No skin off her back. "Nothing to it-"

Oh, dear God.

She recognized her mistake immediately. Sakura clenched, dropping the toast onto the table. Butter side down right on her gorgeous marble. A splurge or an investment depending on what mood she was in when asked about it.

How did the ketchup not help?! It's mostly sugar!

"Spit it out," he held out a napkin well within grabbing distance, waving it back and forth enticingly. He gestured to the water. "Drink."

My mouth is on fire.

"Imfine," she said as she chewed - slowly. Her face was starting to color. The heat was moving up from the back of the neck straight to her eyeballs.

Is that normal?

"Sakura, you've made your point. You have a higher spice tolerance than me," he continued to try to coax her to do the right thing for herself. "You're tougher than me," he admitted without shame.

Don't look at me.

"Itsfine." The tears in her eyes seemed to undermine her claims. Her face was pinched together in pain. Her teeth crunched down on an eggshell. She nearly gagged then and there. She could feel sweat start to bead up; ready to explode.

Would it be less painful to just keel over? Would that make it stop?!

"Sakura," he was in front of her with a hand on each shoulder. "Sit."

She did not fight essentially being forced into a seat - no matter how gentle he was. Her sweaty hands were placed on top of his as she gulped down the water glass he held for her. She tilted her head back, desperate for every last drop.

"More," she croaked. "More!" She nearly knocked the glass of orange juice onto its side as she lunged for it with derangement.

"Easy," Minato's tone was low as he escorted the glass to her mouth in a display of zero trust in her abilities to do the same. If she had any capacity to feel something other than pain, she would have made her offense known. Loudly.

She just managed to force the juice down her throat without it dribbling to the sides of her mouth. She gasped for air. Her eyes found his. An apology - she owed him ten at the very least - bubbled up in her throat, ready to be shared. But what came out instead was far from it.

"They're not the same," she said on the verge of sobbing, tears halfway down her cheeks. "They're not the same." She shook her head helplessly, her recently developed world-view was shattered.

Minato's shoulders shook; his lips were pressed together in a line that did not hold. He laughed. Open and free. She found herself joining in until the new tears were being shed for a completely different reason.

xXx

"Everything looks really good," she said with a pleased tone. "In a couple of days, we can reduce the size of your bandage." She massaged his fingers, encouraging increased blood flow to his utilized well-below-average hand. "I know," she made an apologetic face while her tone was full of remorse. "But physical therapy is part of the process and the sooner we start, the less of a lift it will feel like once your stitches are removed."

He let out a small grunt for her to do whatever she wanted. It was painful, to say the least, this new addition to their routine. "You take all this stuff for granted when it's working properly," he mused out loud, needing something different to try, because pretending he did not feel pain was not helping in making the session manageable.

"Hm," she nodded her head in agreement absentmindedly. She was perched on her coffee table, facing him as she conducted the latter half of the assessment. "Squeeze my fingers as much as you can without it being too uncomfortable," she instructed in that detached clinical voice of hers. It was strange how it never managed to feel cold even though it had every reason to.

He complied all while biting the inside of his cheek, making that pain nearly compete with that which stemmed from his shoulder. Nearly.

"Don't overdo it," she advised him. "I still can't believe you finished that abomination I made for you. You seem to be a glutton for punishment."

"It's fine," he tried to smile but the sweat on his brow was actively working against him. "I have a high pain tolerance."

"You don't have to be so proud of that fact," she said with an annoyed snort. "You sure I can't interest you in some oranges?" The guilt was back two-fold at the memory of him skipping dinner. He had not given a reason but she was not unaware. Later this evening or tomorrow would not be fun for him. If only she had some yogurt lying around. Surely it would help with the churning her food left him with. It was true what they said, no good deed went unpunished.

"It was a big breakfast. A three-egg scramble," he smiled with some strain. His brow glistened with sweat through his long lash-grazing fringe.

"Four," she murmured. "That's good." The pressure around her fingers ceased immediately, before he could retract his hand completely, she held his palm with both of hers, facing upwards. She worked her thumbs along it, stretching and pressing down. A steadily applied pressure.

"Four?" Minato chuckled as he shook his head. "No wonder I was struggling so much."

Her lips pulled upward in a smile she did not remember approving. "You're tall," she said dismissively. "My mom loves to say that Sakuto - my brother - could eat half a dozen eggs in one sitting. I never really paid attention to the exact amount so I can't tell you if that's accurate or not. Figured four split the difference between not being enough and being excessive."

"Four is better than six," he trained his eyes to where their hands connected. He watched her fingers work dutifully. Increased circulation meant increased sensitivity.

"I remember giving myself a stomach ache trying to match what he ate. It took me three whole months to be able to look at eggs again without going green. Which made the whole Dr. Seuss lesson at school rather hard. To celebrate the completion of that unit we made green eggs and ham," she shook her head at the memory. "I all but cried in front of my whole class when they asked me why my plate was untouched." Her thumbs stopped moving but she did not let go. "Sakuto cleared it. Said it was so good that he wanted seconds and thirds. He made everyone jealous with the amount he hyped up my eggs. They left his teeth green for two days. I used too much food coloring. A recurring problem," she joked half-heartedly.

"He sounds like a good older brother."

"The best really," she smiled sadly at him. "He's the reason I opened my clinic. He was thirteen years older than me. But he never made me feel like a burden to be around or that he was forcing himself to interact with me. I wanted to be just like him growing up. I still want to be just like him."

He wanted to ask what happened because something had happened. He knew something had happened. Something had to have happened. Her brother's dog tags were hanging from Sakura's keys. She wore his clothes at home - his pullovers, his shirts, his hoodies. Both Sakura and Mebuki wore the same far-off look in their eyes when they talked about him. He knew that look. He carried that look.

"Sakura," he gathered the courage he needed to ask, all because she had opened the door.

She squeezed his hand one more time before the warmth was gone altogether. "The show is about to start," she smiled. Her eyes slipped closed.

His stomach turned. No, it was not. She had not consulted a clock. But he did not call out the lie out loud. It would not have done any good anyway for she was already halfway to the kitchen - she could always pretend that she never heard him speak and he was too polite to argue the contrary.

"I'll make us some popcorn," she said loudly without so much as a glance as she searched the cupboards. "Do you like Parmesan cheese on yours…Sakura's other way?"

"No thank you," he spoke toward the TV. The curve of her spine and the downturn of her chin would all seep any appetite he had squandered together. The door of the microwave closed. The spinning of the plate soon joined by the pops of the kernels ate away at the silence that sank between them.

The knock on the door had him lifting his head from the armrest of the couch. Minato rubbed his eyes. He could barely make out the sounds of the water. It was her singing that was a more clear-cut indicator that she was still very much in her shower. The knock sounded again. He sat up, his right hand was already slipping into the drawer of the end table - where he kept this gun when he was lounging on the couch. He stood up and tucked the gun into the back waistband of his gray sweats. His right hand hovered closely.

His mind was clear.

He was almost at the peephole when his ears picked on something very distinctive that his brain was having a hard time justifying. The key met the lock and twisted. He watched it happen in slow time: the door opened obscuring him every bit as much as the perpetrator. He felt his quickened heartbeat in his pulse as his hand slipped under his hoodie. His fingers curled around the grip of his gun. The door closed. He furrowed his brow when nothing was filling his line of sight. The deadbolt was engaged again. Minato lowered his gaze. His hand fell limply to his side just as the intruder turned his head.

Minato found himself face-to-face with a boy with a mop of brown hair and large over-the-ear silver headphones who was holding the blue nylon handles of a plastic tote bag between his hands.

"Who are you?" The boy demanded incredulously, backing up until he was propped against the door he had entered from.

Minato's sharp eyes did not miss that the boy's phone was on nor the fact that emergency services were already mostly dialed, he just needed one more number and to hit the call button. The blond tore his eyes from the phone and smiled.

xXx

"You are my sunshine," Sakura sang softly to herself while she tossed the damp towel onto the laundry drying rack she had in her room. Her brushed hair sat around her neck, over another towel draped over her shoulders. She rang her palms along her moisturized arms. Her everything-shower was complete and she felt more like herself. A round of self-pampering was all she needed and not a moment too soon. She hummed the song - the parts that were not all that exciting to sing. She tugged the hemline of her large pullover down. The army motto was displayed across her shoulders. The hem nearly touched the tops of her knees. Apparently, Sakuto had a monopoly on the height in their family for their generation.

I should get an air fryer. It would make reheating Mom's katsu so much easier and better.

She continued to hum as she opened the door to her room. Her toes were cozy in their pink slippers. "Please don't take my sunshine…away?" She frowned at the one head that had turned to stare back at her. She blinked and blinked again but even then the picture in front of her did not change.

What…in the world?

"It's Wednesday," Minato answered her silent question dryly. His tone was even blanker than his face.

Wednesday… what does that have to do with any-oh…Oh!

Her eyes widened. She stared at the boy with horror on her features. "Hiro!" She breathed his name in pure, unadulterated alarm. He was fine, sitting there happily with the rust-pink throw across his lap eating a blue popsicle while watching TV. Completely and utterly enthralled. He could not care less that she was standing there.

How could I forget?!

"I'll get us more popcorn," Minato announced, grabbing the purple plastic bowl that was mostly unpopped kernels.

"Okay," Hiro said in a loud volume on account of his headphones which were playing the sounds of the movie nearly loud enough for Sakura to make out from where she stood root in place from her shock. "Can I have orange soda too, please?" Hiro called out. "In my special cup."

"Help me with the special cup, Sakura," Minato said purely for Hiro's benefit even as he was looking right at her. Not happy in the slightest. Minato was off the couch and turning her by the elbow toward the kitchen. Sakura gulped. She was tethered to him. Trapped. He came to a stop at the counter. Minato reached for the top cabinet where she kept the popcorn. He began to speak in a low voice.

"He got here twenty minutes ago. I put on Harry Potter at his insistence. He's been on the couch nearly the whole time." Minato's lips barely moved and he did not so much as look at her. But that did not alter Sakura from gawking at him openly, consequently with her mouth just as open. "He had a key. Who is he?"

"Today's Wednesday," she blabbered, completely turned around.

"We've established that," he said, not without some degree of tightness. He removed the plastic film from the brown bag of kernels without difficulty which was an accomplishment she was too preoccupied to register much less celebrate.

"He lives in this building. In 1-F. His name is Hiro. He's my friend Amaya's kid. She's a single mom. She picked up extra shifts to pay for Hiro's activities. He's homeschooled. He takes classes online and is usually with his grandmother but she needs a break every now and then. And I look after him once or twice a week. He's a good kid. He has a key. I gave it to Amaya if she needed anything or to water my plants and bring in my mail if I got stuck at my mom's when I wasn't expecting it," she rambled. In her lack of giving him information in the past, she was overcompensating by providing way too much now. From one extreme to the other. In her growing unrest and panic, she did not realize how close she was standing to him - not even when her shoulder was pressed up against his upper arm because she was shorter; almost a full head shorter. "I totally forgot," she pleaded for forgiveness.

I screwed up!

"I believe you," he glanced over at the boy before settling his eyes on her face. "It's okay," he said softly.

Really?

"He didn't surprise you did he?" She asked stupidly without thinking. She wrung her hands out of having nothing better to do with them at the moment. "I mean he didn't see your," she looked over her shoulder quickly, "you know what," she whispered.

"No," Minato dipped his head closer to hers. "He didn't."

"Thank God," she flattened a palm to her chest. She could feel her heart beating frantically. "Is this okay?" Because she was insecure and she needed assurance.

Is he going to be okay?

"Everything is fine." Minato stepped away. A draft of air he generated hit her face. She watched him press the popcorn button on the microwave.

Are you sure you're not mad?

She stepped to the left to avoid having to think about the feeling he left her with. She stood on her tippy-toes for a blue plastic cup that was on the middle shelf. She stretched her arms as far as she could, her fingers only managed to push the cup further away. Just completely out of reach. Even if she was too stubborn to admit the thought out loud. She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. A palm pressed on the counter to stabilize herself. She leaned forward, balancing with all her focus. Her breath entered sharply when an arm thicker than hers entered her line of view. She dared not move. She could feel him behind her. Frozen in place with her arm over her head she watched the blue cup lower until it was out of her gaze. She heard it being placed on the countertop with a soft click next to her hand - within reach. Again it was for her benefit. It was his way of telling her it was safe for her to turn back around. The lack of his body heat on her back was more subtle in saying the same.

Sakura lowered her heels to the ground slowly, feeling slightly dizzy. She counted her breaths. Her quickened heartbeat was as unwelcome as it was unexpected. Sakura used the heels of her palms to push off the counter. She moved past him - around him - on her way to the fridge. She pulled it open, willing the cold air to do something for her. Anything. Even if it was small and fleeting. Her thoughts were running rampant. She had put a child in a dangerous situation. It was her fault. If Minato - or God forbid if Sasori had been here - was even slightly more trigger-happy, all of this could have ended so, so badly. Without thinking, she grabbed a white carton with a green twist cap. Sakura closed the fridge door. She walked back to where he had left the cup, hands moving up and down to shake the carton. She began to fill it. The popcorn was popping faster now.

"He asked for orange soda," Minato's eyes were on her but every now and then they would wander over to Hiro who had not moved.

"He asked," she smiled wryly, "but that doesn't mean he'll get it." She swirled the carton to gauge how much more there was. "Want the last of it?" She asked with a teasing gleam in her eyes. "Seeing how I drank all of yours from the other morning?"

"Sure," Minato reached for a glass for her to pour some into. He held two in his hands.

"What did you say to him?" She asked him without raising her eyes from her task as if pouring orange juice was incredibly delicate work and with him looking at her, it might as well have been.

"That I'm a friend who's hanging out," he watched as the last few drops pushed the levels closer to the edge.

A friend…a bit generous no?

"Hanging out?" She asked, twisting the cap back on the container. She put it on the counter to rinse out and put it in the small box she used to hold her recycling later.

"Is that not what people say?" He asked and for the first time today, she saw something akin to insecurity flittering across his cobalt eyes.

She wrinkled her nose. "Did he call you old?"

"He did," Minato admitted without hesitation. He mirrored her smile. She felt the knot in her stomach loosen a margin.

Your whole face changes when you smile. You become more approachable. Less aloof. Less Akatsuki-like.

"It's a good thing," she filled her cup with water. The microwave dinged. She gathered the blue glass in her free hand. "Are you going to get that?" She inquired, searching his face.

Minato blinked. "Right." He turned his head toward the appliance and away from her, pressing the button to open the door.

Sakura walked to the couch, settling on the right side of Hiro. "Here you go, kiddo," she lowered his glass in front of him on a coaster. "And before you have a chance to be disappointed, it's juice, not soda."

I'm sorry, Hiro.

Hiro sighed long-suffering as he clicked on the remote in his hand. "Where's the popcorn?" He asked her with sparkling eyes, looking away from the paused movie. Poor Harry was stuck with one eye open and the other closed. His mouth was frozen midword.

"My friend Minato is bringing it," she said with a smile as she settled back into the cushions. She brought her legs up. "The Goblet of Fire?" She asked him, angled toward him with her arm over the top of the couch.

"It's the best movie, and arguably book," Hiro lowered his hands into the popcorn bucket that was held out for him. Minato sat on his otherside. "Not Sakura's way?" He frowned.

"Not today, kid," She shook her head. "And I'm not arguing," Sakura reached over to snag some popcorn of her own. "Minato?" She glanced at the blond.

"I'm not one to argue," he answered smoothly. "He's right as it is."

Sakura tossed popcorn in her mouth to hide her smile.

"Can I start it now?" Hiro asked with a huff, the remote was already pointed at the screen.

"Of course, Hiro, she said calmly," she just managed with a straight face.

Hazel eyes rolled upward seeking either mercy or a cave-in, but they received neither. He pressed the button that triggered the pictures to move. Harry's mouth moved, the audio entered the room, and the headphones.

"No so loud, kiddo," Sakura reminded him with two taps on her knee.

Hiro's hand tapped as many times on the volume, reducing it in silent acquiescence of her request all the while shaking his head. Sakura continued to add popcorn to her mouth one at a time, looking quite pleased with herself, taking great enjoyment in Hiro's sourness. The small upward curve of Minato's lips only added to it all.

xXx

"Your mother is amazing," Sakura gushed with exuberance. "These were her best enchiladas yet. The meat melted in my mouth," she pulled her shoulders up in a contained squeal. "So good." She handed Hiro a plate. He began to dry it.

"I'll let her know," he said without color as he worked to wipe one side of it thoroughly; leaving not even towel fuzz behind.

"Speaking of letting people know things," she began slowly, not taking her eyes off the soapy suds that she lathered the plate with. "Can you maybe not let your mom know about Minato? I haven't had a chance to tell her and I don't want her to worry."

I need time to think of a believable adult lie.

Hiro turned the plate, carefully with all his focus. He began to dry the backside of it. "Because you forgot."

"Because I forgot," she hung her head. "I'm really sorry about that, Hiro."

That and everything else.

"I know." He lowered the plate to the counter, bending over on the footstool. "You apologized."

"I know. I did," but she still felt awful. "It must not have felt very good to be waiting outside the door and having to use your key."

"It was fine," he said with a dismissive shrug, taking the plate from her hand. "I didn't wait that long. I got cold."

Right in the heart, kid.

She sighed in her disappointment at herself. "I know I would have been so scared if I were in your shoes. Opening the door and finding a stranger." She tried to not make it obvious that she was watching him closely. Studying Hiro for additional insights into just how badly she screwed things up for him so she could blame herself accordingly.

"It was," Hiro frowned. Sakura's stomach was in a free fall to her toes. "But only for a little while. Minato explained who he was. He wasn't a stranger then. So it stopped being scary."

And because Minato was Minato - charming, sweet, disarming, calm, all accompanied by a face that you could seemingly not think twice about trusting - she did not find it hard to believe. At all. But that being acknowledged did nothing in the way of alleviating the built-up guilt.

"Minato's not scary."

Oh kid, if only that was true.

Because she was scared of him. Even more than the man she had shot. Even more than the police force. Even more than her mother finding out the truth.

"You're brave Hiro. Braver than me," she spoke with honesty that was settled into her bones. "The time you and I spend together is really important to me and I know that my actions today failed to live up to that standard, I will try my best to make it up to you, Hiro. The next time," she hoped with everything she was worth that it was not just empty words.

"Sakura," he frowned in her direction. His eyes rested in the general area of her nose. "I'm not upset."

"I'm glad," she smiled at him, knowing he could see the gesture and that was enough. "Thank you for being so understanding." His shoulder stiffened momentarily at the words. "How is your hand holding up?" She asked him, quick to take the pressure off.

"Good," he said with a small nod. "I've been doing my stretches like you showed me."

"That's good. You let me know if it gets to be too much okay? Don't overdo it, Hiro," she warned in a light tone.

"You work too much," he addressed the plate he was inspecting for any lingering water droplets that had escaped his toweled swipes.

"So you are upset," she pouted. "You sound like your mom."

"Well I am her son," he huffed.

You would make your mom's week kid if you ever told her that.

Sakura scrubbed the bottom of the sink for the last traces of food residue. She peeled the blue, rubbery gloves from her hands and set them to dry across the curve of the faucet. She moved to the other side of the boy to begin putting everything back from where it came.

"Is he really your friend, Sakura?"

She fought her instinct to freeze. Hiro would notice. He always noticed. "He is."

"How come you never mentioned him before?" He lowered the last plate on top of the others. "You talk all the time about Ino. You've told us about Lee, Karin, Kurenai, Shizune, Asuma, and Kakashi," he listed off each name in the same monotone.

Why do you have to be such a sharp kid all the time, Hiro? With the memory of an elephant to boot.

She pulled her bottom lip under her teeth, thinking. "Um," she held the plates to her and opened the cabinet with her free hand. "I wasn't sure about him before. And I wanted to be sure about him before I introduced you all."

There was no reason to tell you.

"So you're sure about him?" Hiro continued to press. He was practically as tall as her thanks to the stepstool. She found herself thankful that eye contact was not his thing because she surely would have crumbled like a cookie if he pinned her with a look that matched his tone: stern.

Daggers of disappointment.

"As sure as someone can be about someone they haven't known all that long." She did not want to lie any more than she had, especially when she was asking him to lie to his best friend - his mother.

"Are you not completely sure because he didn't help you clean up?" He blinked slowly. "Friends help friends."

She smiled. The urge to ruffle his hair was great but so were the consequences of such an action. So she kept her hands where they belonged: to herself. "He's a little tired, not feeling his best. So he gets a pass this time." She prayed that Minato would stay in the shower a little longer. They had come to learn that the hot water helped alleviate some of the itchiness at night.

"Are you having a sleepover?"

"No," she shook her head. Hiro did not know what that meant beyond the context of the shows he watched. Shows that his mother had to first approve of. The question was innocent enough. "He spilled juice on himself, remember? He's just getting cleaned up before he heads back home. Maybe he'll take a nap first so he's not tired when he's driving because that would be dangerous," she explained as nonchalantly as she could. She did not know how close she came to the mark. She was far from a convincing actress but Hiro struggled with social cues so maybe it worked in her favor. As deplorable as it was.

"Okay."

Sakura let out a silent breath of relief. Hiro hopped off the stool. He crouched down to pick it up. She opened the bottom cabinet for him to slide it inside. "Thank you for your help." He adjusted his headphones on his ears.

"That's my line, kid." She held up her right hand just above at eye-level with him. Hiro held his own out to line up with hers. They brought them closer together in one motion but pulled back before contact could be made. "Good work today, Hiro."

"I won't tell Mom," he assured her. "Friends gotta help out friends."

She smiled. He did not notice the strain behind her bright eyes.

xXx

"Minato?" Her voice was soft, barely a sound above a breath at all. "Hiro's gone. You can come out now." No sooner than the words had left her lips, the doorknob turned leaving her with very little time to wonder if he was simply loitering on the other side with his ear pressed against the wood, listening for anything.

Like a bat or something…but I mean waiting is pretty boring.

But there was more than just that. He was probably listening intently for her sake. After all, he was here for a very specific reason. And no amount of wishful thinking would change that.

"Hi," she greeted him.

"Hi," he moved back exactly one step, giving her more vantage to notice. The lack of a shirt was one.

"Sorry," she averted her gaze to his feet. "Do you need more time to dress?"

"No. I figured you could look at my shoulder?"

Duh, that way he doesn't have to aggravate it twice.

"Right," she stood there in the doorway with indecision.

"Sakura?" He asked her with consideration to the internal struggle going on that he knew not much more about.

"I have Vaseline and bandages in my bathroom," she moved past him. It was the only way to keep her nerve and voice level. "Take the left side of the bed. Lie back. I'll be right with you." She did not wait for confirmation. She gathered her hair into a bun at the base of her neck, securing it in place with a red claw clip in the shape of a flower that she snagged from the top of her dresser. She was already moving to locate the supplies she needed. She set them out on the counter of the vanity. She turned on the tap and began to wash her hands. She counted in her head slowly, avoiding her reflection in the mirror.

He was lying back as she had asked. His sunny hair sprawled on her white pillowcase. His hands were folded on his naval. Skin on skin. Ankles crossed causing the sweats to rise up just so. Currently, he donned a pair of black ones. They were a slimmer fit and she was repulsed with herself for noticing.

As naturally - professionally - as she could, she lowered the bandages to the end table. The opened jar of Vaseline joined it. She did not move to coat her fingers. Instead, with the hand that was designated to spread the jelly, she probed the injury. He had turned on all the lights in the room helpfully.

Always with the consideration.

He challenged her preconceived notions. Perhaps she had a narrow worldview. Or maybe she was jaded with disappointment at witnessing heartbreak in those she cared about. Learning from other's mistakes so she did not have to repeat them - so to speak. But she was under the belief that men were not wired to anticipate. They could follow orders and do as they were told but that was the extent of it. If they brought a package inside from the door and even went as far as putting the item in its place, they would leave the discarded box lying around for someone to trip on for example. The emotional labor - the mental cycles - ultimately fell on the woman. Perhaps it was offensive not just to men but to every non-heteronormative relationship out there, but that was what she had believed. But she was beginning to question that now. Just a little.

And you're to blame.

"Thank you for not turning Hiro away. Things like routines and schedules are important to him. It would have been very upsetting for him if it was broken," she made notes to herself of the coloring, puffiness, and texture of the skin around the sutures. As she saw in real time, she was compared to this morning and to a few days back.

"It's the least I could do," he said in a quiet voice.

"It's really not," she shook her head at what was sort of becoming his catchphrase. He wore humility well. As good as the expensive suits that draped him if not better. "You were great with him and you didn't have to be and that on top of everything else requires a thank you." She could feel his eyes on her which made her wish her hair was down. At least that way, some of her would be obscured from all of his intensity. Her shield. Her armor was of no use to her like this.

Don't worry I won't cook for you again, that'll be my thanks.

"You were right."

"About?" She stubbornly avoided his eyes just as he refused to focus elsewhere.

"Hiro. He's a good kid."

No new discoloration. No increase in swelling. The skin is holding.

She smiled, dabbing at the angry red skin that was so dry. "He really is," she agreed with fondness laced to hold each word together.

"I really don't want to disrupt your life more than absolutely necessary."

There was so much earnestness in his tone that she had to close her eyes and gather herself. Just for a moment. How easy it would be to pretend that he was just a nice guy. A really nice guy. The illusion was so tempting.

A decent guy. You have all the makings to be a decent guy. So why…so how did you end up mixed up with the Akatsuki? With the Nara.

"What do you do for the Akatsuki?" She raised her eyes to his, suddenly in a decisive strike. She did not blink in the face of his surprise. He recovered quickly like he always did. But a cool mask did not replace his features. No, there was still some warmth there. Just enough for it to be conflicting whether she knew him at all or not.

Who are you Minato?

Pivotal. The silence felt pivotal to her. If he lied, she would have an answer of what this was, full stop. If he told the truth, it opened a door for something more. If he declined to answer, that was where things got a little less clear. She supposed it would depend on other things such as his body language, his demeanor, the tone of his voice, the hesitation or lack thereof. She dissected the silence. Every slow flutter of his pale lashes could mean so much or nothing at all. He opened his mouth. Her fingers twitched on his chest in something he surely felt. It felt like an eternity waiting for his lips to move. She sat perched on the edge of the bed.

"I control the ports. What comes in and what goes out," he stated simply.

But the answer was far from simple. The answer raised a plethora of questions. Namely how?

"There are dozens of entries to Konoha." Officially such as ports, customs checkpoints, and unofficial channels were nearly uncountable. Like spider veins that splintered off of a main artery or vein. "Fourteen of which see traffic the level the clan is interested in," he sighed warily, his hand went for what was not there: the cigarette behind his ear. He did not bother to play off the action as anything purposeful. "I oversee trade to make sure that the clan doesn't take in losses in goods. And what is delivered is what is promised."

A hub… he operates a hub. Minato….

"And what is delivered?" She asked undaunted. Steady. Ignorance may be bliss but not in this case. Ignorance would be a disservice. "And what is promised?"

What kind of hub are you, Minato? What do you connect?

He held her gaze, not lowering it in the slightest. "A wide range of goods. Sometimes services."

You're going to make me say it...spell it out, huh? 

She clenched her jaw. She would not be deterred. "Do those services go by alternative names like exploitation?" Her green eyes blazed with a fire that was only growing hotter as each scenario came to her mind. Images real and dramatized flooded her at once.

"I don't deal people. And I don't make deals with people who do." His words were the extent of his communication. Beyond his unwavering eye contact, he gave her little to work with.

"Drugs?" She pressed. "Weapons?"

"Depends," the unsatisfactory answer slipped past his growing tighter-by-the-blink lips. "And yes."

"What is it dependent on?" She asked with more flippantness than what was productive.

The weather? Your mood? Demand?

"No Class A or Class B substances. No weapons above Class Two."

So no morphine, ketamine, heroin, GHB, oxy, or coke - the most harmful of substances. And no machine guns, grenades, rocket launchers - basically military weapons. How noble.

"What about the clan?" She was not satisfied with mere sentiment. "You make it seem like you have a say."

Are you just blowing up smoke to distract me?

"Maybe it's because I do," he clicked his tongue. A chuckle - tense and short - pushed past his throat. "I don't trade humans and destruction, Sakura. Never have and never will."

You're smart. More than smart enough to make something of your life. So why Minato? Why did you sell your soul to them?

She felt something inside her unclench and relaxed despite her intentions to keep her guard up. "So you see them as humans?"

"That's what they are, isn't it?" He asked rhetorically.

Why are you here? How did you end up here?

"So you're a right hand with morals, huh?" She did not set out to be so argumentative and accusatory. Something about him pulled this side out of her; a side she thought was long gone.

"I'm human, Sakura," he cut through the heart of it. "The question is do you see that?"

How dare you ask me that?

She pushed unamused air out of her nostrils. "That is what you are, isn't it?" She threw his words back in his face.

"It is," he nodded his head, barely. "But that's not what I asked."

I held you closed while you bled with my hand!

"You know you are. You know the answer. You know I do." She was defensive. A part of her recognized that. A small part. Probably the only sane part.

What do you want from me? What more do you want from me?

"If I knew," he smiled without humor. Small. Fleeting. Guilt-inducing. His voice had not fluctuated once. He was in total control despite her being the one throwing out leading questions. "I wouldn't have asked."

I…I….I'm a good person. Right?

She stopped short. Her head cleared of a thought. There was a buzzing in the vacancy she was suddenly left to deal with. Akin to a fat fly moving around in completely random motion. She gnawed on her bottom lip with zero concern that he could see her actions. She felt bad and that added to her conflict. She felt so small for having made him feel that way even if it was just transitory. It was a rather abrupt and harsh reminder that she still had a long way to go from her goal; from seeing what she wanted to see in the mirror. She sighed.

The buzzing was drowned out by the first wayward thought to cross her mind. Soon it was joined by more. She was swimming in them. Or maybe she was just drowning the dark turbulent waters of his sapphire eyes. Dark and bottomless. She held on to a piece of driftwood that floated her way.

Start over. Talk to him. Don't assume. Don't accuse. Don't be like you. Calm down, Haruno.

"So you deal with shipping and receiving," she began again with a more neutral tone, grounding herself with a breath. "For one of the largest clans in Konoha. You look out for their interests as long as they align with your morals." Morals she was slowly learning both through what he told her and what he showed her. "That could lead to a lot of friction with the other clans. Sounds like a lot of stress," she moved her fingertips in small circles unknowing of what she was doing. Almost representative of the circular nature of her thoughts. She did not know what to make of this all. Which way was up again? She held on.

"It can. It did especially in the beginning. But bullets and bloodshed are not profitable. Business is. The underground casinos need to run, the money laundering businesses that are also happy to launder clothes, the tattoo shops that are gateways to underground boxing matches, and the like. Money is the bottom line for the Akatsuki above all else. And as long as there is enough to go around no one grumbles too much."

Business is okay. Business isn't terrible.

"But what happens when someone gets greedy?" She asked with a frown. Her fingers curled toward her palm as her hand rested on his pectoral muscle, nearly covering his alliance.

What happens then? What happens to you then?

"There's always disagreements. Some rustled feathers," he smiled, sending her stomach fluttering. He brought his palm to cradle the back of his head. He peered at her under his lashes. She swallowed not so subtly.

How come you never get mad? How can you not get mad?

"And that doesn't scare you?" It was all wrong, his nonchalance. These were criminals. Hardened criminals. Criminals that did not think twice about pulling a trigger - repeatedly - surrounded by civilians.

You could have died. You had a hole in you. How are you fine?

"I've gotten very good at placating and balancing egos," his thumb moved across her arm in what would have been bold if she had not started whatever this was. "Smoothing things over," he added in a textured voice, layered with things she was too preoccupied to pick apart.

Placation. Is that why you're so calm? You're so busy placating everyone else that you're too exhausted to have anything left over for you to feel. Is that it?

"So what happened then? What happened at the Tani Station?" Her need to know trumped the self-preservation that said not to test him. But if he was good at placating egos, maybe he himself did not suffer from the same ailment.

Are you safe?

"Something that never should have." His thumb pressed into the crook of her arm. Not painful but not negligible either. "I'll take care of it. I'm taking care of it."

She nodded her head, absentmindedly. Her focus was being pulled by his eyes. His dark, dark eyes held the warmth of the naked Raiden lightbulb of her desk lamp. She leaned forward all without realizing. A loud buzz had her snapping back.

Minato reached for his phone which was next to the Vaseline with annoyance on his face. Maybe. He was once again guarded.

"Who is it?" She asked for the sake of it. She swiped her thumb down the length of the stitches, counting that each one was still accounted for. Seventeen. She leaned left for the bandages, dipping her head to hide her flushed face.

What was that?

"Your mom," he frowned, turning his phone to show her. "She texted."

What?

She blinked. It was her mother's number on the top of the screen under the name he stored it under. Ms. Haruno. Her brain was just not computing nearly fast enough. "My mom?" She asked incredulously, voice going nasally. "Why is my mom texting you?"

At least there's not enough to justify the scrollbar.

"She told me to bring tools," he ran a hand through his bangs. "Any idea of what that could be about?"

"No," she answered honestly, perturbed. "Did she mention me at all?"

His eyes darted back to the phone that had turned back around to face him. He sucked a breath through his teeth.

"Are you thinking of a lie?" She raised her brow and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Potentially," he answered without meeting her in the eyes.

So she didn't ask.

"I think I might have a hammer somewhere from when Ino and I hung the photos on the walls," she said, covering the feelings rising in her. "Maybe some duct tape?" She tilted her head to the side with thoughtfulness. "A couple of thumbtacks and a rubber band."

"That helps," Minato said slowly. He clicked through his phone.

You're lying.

"Are you texting Sasori?"

"I'm texting Hora," he nodded his head.

Sakura sighed. She reached for the bandages. "Are you handling me?" She began to unfurl them after opening the packaging.

"You would not even think to ask if I was handling you," his eyes twinkled with self-assurance in his abilities.

"Cocky much?" She asked with a scoff, looking away because she did not trust her face to keep cool, not when he turned up the heat of his gaze.

"Cocky would be pointing out how you seem to be in no hurry to get me into a shirt and out of your bed." The right side of his lips pulled higher than his left as he smirked at her, smug in his totality.

She rolled her eyes, refusing to think about the flush of her cheeks. "You're rather one-dimensional," she mused, busying herself with fluffing his pillow just to give herself something else to fixate on.

"I believe to the non-pessimist it's referred to as consistency," he informed her with a half-smile that was all smug, which she caught from the corner of her eye.

"Charming," she bit out sarcastically. "To call a realist a pessimist is rather pessimistic of you, wouldn't you say, Mr. Optimist?" She leaned back and crossed her arms - that was the intention anyway but the signal got lost somewhere along that very way and her hands wound up at his shoulder again. She played it off as a meaningful act. At least that was what she told herself.

"You're putting words in my mouth, Dr. Haruno," he countered, cheeky.

And because she was weak and she had no discipline, her gaze drifted down from sapphire-colored oceans along a sharp ride of a nose, between Cupid's bow to the end of the path marked by soft, pink muscles protected by a layer of skin with mauve tones. His mouth. His annoying, troublesome, no-good mouth.

I think I know what you are.

"I would have waited."

She saw the words being formed as her ears recognized them. The low and textured voice was ASMR she was not expecting. She could just close her eyes, drift off, and leave her troubles behind for a moment. A respite.

"If the timing was there, for the right person. If that's what she wanted. I would have waited."

You, Minato Namikaze, are trouble with a capital T.

"Words," Sakura pressed her tongue to the corner of her mouth. Retracting her hands to her lap, she raised her eyes to his. "May be easy to say in a moment found to be receptive, but actions are harder to align. Hindsight has more perspective. Wisdom comes with time," she recited, concluding with a click of her tongue. She was unfazed by the darkening of his eyes.

Infatuation is a powerful beast but ultimately fickle, Mr. Namikaze.

"Now," she sighed deeply, a mental reset of her headspace - willing the warm air to do the same. "Quit trying to distract me. I need to focus." He zipped his lips and tossed the make-believe key over his shoulder in a very cheeky display. She sucked in her teeth. "It's rather unfortunate you did that because I was just about to ask how you've been sleeping."

The problem is….

He stared at her with open curiosity, like she was some kind of puzzle he was trying to piece together without having the final picture as a guide.

I find myself wondering if you're the kind of trouble worth getting into or not.

"You need your rest. I keep waking you at night and in the mornings. Maybe you should take the bedroom," she offered without reluctance. "That way you don't need to be uprooted anytime someone stops by or something." She tugged at the bandages in her hands. "Say something."

And I know it makes no sense. There's no logic. There's no reason.

"I meant what I said," his eyes softened with gratitude. "I don't want to disrupt your life more than I have."

A little late for that because I want to know.

One way or the other, her life was never going to be the same again. She started and finished wrapping him without another word. It was the only way to avoid putting her foot in her mouth or worse…her mouth against his.

Chapter Text

Words may be easy to say in a moment found to be receptive, but actions are harder to align.

Hindsight has more perspective. Wisdom comes with time.

Minato stared up at the stationary ceiling fan momentarily resting his eyes in a shift of focus, his fingers restlessly drumming against his navel.

Sumida. She reads Sumida. She can recite Sumida.

He had been so caught off guard that he did not have the chance to respond - to banter. The words of Takayuki Sumida, a renowned poet, were known to fewer and fewer minds; held in the corners of brains even less. The backlight of his phone illuminated his face even at the lowest setting. A thumb ceased its bottomless scroll, finding what a pair of cobalt eyes searched for.

"Take not lightly my spent breath, for it is not something I can gather and collect. If a lie finds its way to you, I pray for death. I'd gladly lose my life before I lose your respect," he read softly out loud to himself what he had been unable to say to her in a moment that was gone.

Minato turned off the phone.

Thoughts of you linger,

Moon's light dances on the wall,

Sleep evades my bed.

He sighed.

He breathed through his mouth. The orange, plastic contraption with little jigsaw teeth sank deeper into the lone pipe. He twisted as he continued to list things in his head that invoked pleasantness.

Pandas, ducklings, flowers, pink….

The last one was a mistake. He made a face, unable to stop himself from taking in the tangled mess that was at eye level. Pink. Or it had been before the sludge from the pipes coated it in gray. A lot of former pink but even some strands of blond. He gagged, covering his nose with his other arm. The scent of his deodorant wafting up occasionally was nowhere near strong enough to keep the putrid, rancid, stank from making his eyes water. As carefully as he could - all while still giving speed consideration - he moved the mass over to the plastic bag lying in wait dutifully with its mouth open wide. He slapped the hair and such into it, using the sides to scrape as much of it as he could before he went back in for another attempt. His nose crinkled behind the medical mask, which did not help in the slightest way.

With repetition, the process did not get easier he found, much to his dismay. It was on the third and final extraction that he heaved so violently that he thought it was it - he tasted vomit in the back of his throat - he had glanced over his shoulder and was more than relieved that the door had not changed in any way. She did not see the extreme moment of weakness. She would probably not look at him the same way again - the narrative he outlined in his head. He had his tools so it was imperative that he make the most use of them. It had been a while since he had worked with his hands - hand and a half as his body was quick to remind him. Sakura did not pose that convincing resistance as the water was starting to pool a little too long at the bottom, the drain failing to live up to its name and purpose. She had sighed begrudgingly and told him not to overdo it and busied herself with whatever she deemed worthy of her time.

With a gloved hand, Minato placed the tool into the bag and secured it with a loose knot. He ran the tap. The speckles of dark sludge washed away from the pebbled tile and the light grout. The blue latex glove helped guide the water to be its most efficient all without ever touching his toes. It was when there were no more remnants that he could see - because the smell was still very much engaged - that Minato turned off the sprout and half turned. He found the drain cover and the two screws he had left on the shower bench. He gathered them carefully before he squatted down. With precision, he lined the metal grate over the pipe. It was only when it was perfectly aligned that he moved the two small screws from his palm to the openings. He screwed them in. Minato pushed up to his feet, peeling the left glove off his hand and tossing it in the gap left by the handle of the plastic bag so that he did not have to undo the knot. He pushed aside the shower door and deposited the screwdriver in the red bag that was open on the bathroom vanity. He carried it with him in his ungloved hand and he moved out of the bathroom - turning the light off with his elbow.

The bedroom door was open which was helpful given he did not have a hand to spare. He nudged it closed the best he could, stepping into the hallway. He stopped and swallowed.

Damn.

He thought so eloquently at the image before him. Tight black yoga pants - a far cry from the loose clothes, practically swallowing her, that she usually wore - wrapped around a plump rear that was in the air in a demonstration of flexibility that should not have come as such a surprise. It was pointed right at him for appraisal. What else was he supposed to do? There were no lines leaving his far-from-clean thoughts to connect the dots to the picture; such thoughts, that if he remained in the company for much longer, it would be impossible to deny any allegations she may have.

A deep exhale of air had him doing the same albeit much, much quieter. He stared to add to the stoppage in full commitment to being a massive creep. The woman - the instructor - was saying something on the TV screen but Minato paid her no mind. He was not one to be distracted especially when he was without a mental list of tasks to occupy his mind; from de-clogging the drains, fixing the door, greasing the tracks to the sliding door, and whatever else he had been tinkering with before she started her yoga session. At least he thought it was yoga.

Suddenly a lot more made sense as to why Rihito was so committed to his three-days-a-week class schedule.

All that bullshit about it being good for his balance and back.

There was movement, the rest of her straightened - spine stacked. Elbows bent to allow for her palms to touch. Milky skin - without a flaw - contained in a pink and maroon strappy sports bra (the only proof he had seen to date that she owned one - not that he watched her do her laundry with that in mind or anything) that crisscrossed in the back. The ends of silky, pink tresses brushed the bottom of the fabric. His gaze traveled upward to her neck until it landed on the peak of the high ponytail. Pink. The best shade of pink. The prettiest shade there was, the pink of her cheeks and lips were a close second and third. Her arms fell to her side. She rolled her shoulders - the movement drew in his eye once more to that part of her. Toned and radiant and usually hidden away under layers of clothing, a real shame.

"You done?"

He blinked owlishly. Once. Twice. And a third time. He raised his eyes to a pair of jade irises that carried expectation for a response to her inquiry. Her nose was crinkled with disgust. He felt his stomach drop. Surely it was a non-filtered reaction to catching him ogling her in her own home - with his mouth open no less. His jaw was unhinged which was new to his attention so he had no way of safely determining how long that had been the case. A half-baked apology balanced precariously at the tip of his tongue. He opened and closed his mouth - not unlike a simple-minded fish - searching for something that even hinted at mercy in those too-open eyes of hers. Only they were not looking directly at him as he had been. He followed her line of sight to the bag in his hand - the one of plastic.

Oh…right, that.

Relief surged through him. He cleared his throat. "Yes," he said, the lameness was not missed by him. "Um," the weight reminded him he could not reach for the cigarette that was not even there. All alone. "I'll use the drain clearer tonight since the shower will be out of commission for twelve hours," he said just to fill the silence with something other than the sounds of their breathing and their blinks.

"Twelve hours?" She asked with a raised brow, her arms crossing over her chest. She was facing him now. He did not allow his eyes to dip lower than her chin. It was a bigger test of will than he was expecting. "Seems extreme."

"It's heavy duty," he answered, inwardly cringing at himself. "There's a lot of build-up."

You have no idea just how much.

Sheepishness bled into her demeanor. "I usually call a guy when it gets bad," she chuckled nervously, perhaps out of concern over being judged. "It grosses me out too much to even try."

Me too.

He thought back to the jumble of hair and other not-so-pleasant things on the other end of the drain snake. It was one way to get the circulation of blood flow to level back off toward equilibrium. That pink, he thought of that pink and not the pink-pink right in front of him.

"And blood and guts don't?" He teased with an edge that he hoped came across as playful.

"Not at all," she grinned, seemingly none-the-wiser. She lowered onto the floor and began to roll somewhere between the pink and purple yoga mat. Her side was visible to him this time in a new set of visuals to torment him with.

God, I'm gross. Sorry Mom, Aunt Yoshi.

The two women who raised him would most certainly be disgusted - appalled - with the thoughts rolling around in his head. Particularly the ones about him being jealous of her pink and maroon bra. It was doing a job that he would readily do himself - it was not like he was actively busy or anything.

"Thank you for taking care of it and everything else. The lock on the door to the clinic isn't all crickety anymore." Her voice pulled him out of his stupor. The elastic ends sounded when they stuck together. The rolled-up mat stood tall next to the end table. So was she. Still smiling, he noted because he was being strong and decent by treating her as he would a floating head.

A really cute - super attractive - floating head.

"No problem," he said with a level of nonchalance that even Shika would be impressed with - if he could be bothered to care enough to evoke anything other than general disdain for existence.

"Are you really going to send that off with Sasori?" Her voice had moved as she spoke, growing closer before it was far once more. She was in the kitchen and the TV was off.

"It has my DNA," a complication he need not elaborate further on. "He'll be up in ten minutes," he observed the black door of the refrigerator opening. Again her bottom stuck out at a perfect vantage for him to appreciate the shape - because there was only so much a man could do in these circumstances. And like a fool who did not see the trap that the bait was attached to, he did. He proceeded.

"Hm," she answered with her go-to noncommittal response. She closed the door with a swing of her hips, the muscles of her abdomen clenching. A gesture he would go as far as to say was intentional - because there were times he was under the impression that she could read his mind when her sharp gaze was focused on him intently enough - but then there was the reality of both her hands being full. A tall glass container filled with green liquid in one and a plastic cup with a straw through it. It was also filled with the same green liquid.

"I don't understand why he couldn't just wait up here," she said with a frown.

It's because I can only tolerate him in doses right now. And I certainly can't tolerate him commenting on how bendy you are.

Because knowing Sasori, he would. He most certainly would. And while the logical part of Minato knew - he had eyes for crying out loud - that Sakura was a beautiful, accomplished, woman who no doubt had no shortage of men clamoring for her attention and time, he would rather not have to witness it for himself.

"I made us smoothies," she explained in a misinterpretation of the reason behind his silence. "Put it in a portable cup for the drive." She smiled sweetly at him, moving to the table to set both down. She was at the cabinet, pushed up to her toes to reach for a glass.

So that was what she used the blender for.

He had heard the sound - the lights had flickered every time she pressed the button to pulse the blade - from the bathroom. "Thank you," the words left him automatically. "So yoga?" He began conversationally - the start of his fact-finding mission.

Is this new? Or….

"Hm," she nodded her head, ponytail bobbing up and down. The hairs that rested against her skin were curled and slightly darkened with sweat that had dried from the rest of the surface. The fact only seemed to heighten - deepen - the lotion or perfume she used. The kitchen smelled like her - of vanilla and amber wood. Sweet and earthy. Warm. "It's low impact. Helps with stress. Can be done anywhere. Sometimes even on nights when I can't sleep. Figured it was as good a time as any to try to get back into a routine."

"Routines are good," he removed his voice from the guilt - for too many reasons to dig into presently - churning in his gut.

You have no shortage of reasons to stress either.

He lowered the tools at the foot of the end table. By the time he had set the plastic bag on the floor near the trash and pulled off the last glove to stuff into the bag that was now sealed more tightly, she had filled her glass. He washed his hands and joined her on the table. There was something in her glittering green eyes that was fairly novel. She was holding her glass in her hand, elbow resting on the table smirking in some type of way, maybe even a little sadistically but that would just be the PTSD talking. She had not taken a drink yet judging from the clean rims of the glass.

Show no weakness.

If it was going to go through him, he would much rather not have it happen while he was driving. Pushing thoughts away from how he spent his last tens of minutes as he was more than a little queasy already, Minato licked his bottom lip and reached for the cup. His lips wrapped around the straw. She watched the green liquid move up the see-through column. The taste filled his mouth, coating his tongue.

"It's good," he managed to keep the surprise from his voice.

"It's mostly apple juice," she laughed, eyes holding mischievous that he finally placed. "I tasted it before I offered this time," she shared information that would have been helpful prior - saving him the trouble of steeling his resolve, sighing in satisfaction after doing the same - taking a little taste.

Sadistic indeed.

"Maybe call him up after I finish my shower?" Sakura asked him with her head tilted to the side. "Why tempt him, right?" Her eyes darted to the right - to the door that locked from inside the kitchen

He nodded his head, not having to think twice. Maybe she was not as trusting as she came across. He pulled out his phone to alert Hora that the wait had gone up by twenty minutes.

"You're not one of those crazies that do CrossFit are you? Or worse…run half-marathons on holidays?" She asked with ample judgment not even a second after he had hit "send."

Minato smirked, eyeing her over the top of the straw. "What gives you that impression?" He quirked a blond brow with the question, taking more delight than he should in the way her cheeks flushed, betraying the nature of her thoughts.

Like a book. Tease of a cover. Easy to read.

Sakura pressed her lips together, clicking her tongue behind the sealed vault they came to be much too late. "Drink your smoothie," she scowled, jaw relaxing enough to work words out, in not-so-quite admittance of defeat.

Progress.

His expression softened into a grin right before he did just that - not registering the message that lit up his phone without a chime or vibration.

Aye, aye, Captain.

The sarcasm dripped to the point that it coated his phone again not to his notice because the only thing capturing his attention for more than a few fleeting seconds at a time were her green, green eyes. Sasori had to wait well over an hour as they spoke slowly and sipped their drinks even slower still.

Tentative words shared,

Roots reaching beneath the soil,

Slow growth, hearts align.

xXx

Every time he raised his left arm over his head - which given the task was admittedly more than his yoga-pant-wearing doctor would be happy with - he felt the tug of his stitches. Sharp, stabbing pains that gave way to heart-stopping thoughts that he tore them open. His yoga-pant-wearing doctor would definitely not be happy with that - not that he was still thinking about it. On top of it all, he had to keep the pain off his face - his eyes - every time Mebuki came into the hallway. She was a micromanager to the level he had not had the misfortune of meeting in nearly two decades in the Akatsuki. Shikaku could learn a thing or two from her that very well could propel the Nara to the undisputed first spot in the syndicate and that was a horrifying realization. The two could never cross paths for the sake of harmony. He pressed the white button, grimacing as an ear-splitting screech screamed three times. His whole brain rattled in his skull.

I regret not picking up earplugs.

"That's the last of them, Ms. Haruno," he distributed his weight over his feet equally. He stretched his neck from side to side feeling the kink that was adamant to form after days of complaint he did not heed. "All the smoke detectors have their batteries replaced. No more late-night wake-up calls."

Mebuki eyed him up and down and frowned with unabashed disapproval. "Your shoulder is still bothering you."

Nothing gets past you, Ms. Haruno.

She was eagle-eyed and it was fitting because Minato was trying not to squirm like an enticing worm waiting to be picked apart in the too-warm hallway. He was close to the furnace vents. Mother and daughter seemed to share a preference for scalding ambient air temperature. All the movement and stretching worked up his sweat glands.

"I heal slowly," he said with a disarming smile - the one that Mebuki was impervious to but he was consistent.

"My daughter didn't set you straight?" Mebuki narrowed her eyes at the thought that crossed her mind. "She's not the one who did this to you, is she?"

He did not even want to begin to think about what she was implying. He tugged the suddenly too-high neckline of his sand-colored pullover. "No, Ms. Haruno. I zigged when I should have zagged on the court. Not as young as I used to be," he turned his shoulder in a very not recommended action to prove to her that he was what he was clearly not: fine. Between this morning and now, he was at his limit. "Ms. Haruno, you mentioned needing tools?" He asked to draw her attention back to the reason why he was here at all - allegedly.

"Are you a bum?" She asked him out of the blue, seemingly.

"I'm sorry?" He asked, on the cusp of bewildered.

"You came when I asked. The very next day. People with jobs can't just drive down an hour on a whim and spend an hour changing batteries," she said in a tone that was accusatory and confrontational.

I also replaced two whole smoke detectors after two trips to the store.

He thought in his head defensively, not a huge fan of her minimizing his efforts. Not that he was keeping score or anything. "Thursdays happen to be my days off."

"You were here on a Friday last week," her tone was dripping with suspicion that determined the set of her features. "Where did you meet my daughter again?"

"I work a 9/80 schedule. I get every other Friday off," he answered without missing a beat. "And at Naruto's, the coffee shop near where Sakura and I work." The one run by his mentor, who was a defect from the Senju Clan faction of the Akatsuki, opened years after he ran off with their princess - the only granddaughter. "So the tools?" Minato nudged the red bag at his feet.

"Guest sink," Mebuki stopped short of throwing up her hands. "The damn thing is leaking, sending the water bill up astronomically. I got a letter in the mail. It was addressed to Sakura but it was from the city so I opened it," she turned around to look at him, brows flat with impatience. "Are you coming or what?"

"Yes," he bent down to close the bag. He secured it in his grip before following after her.

"She keeps saying she'll just enroll in paperless statements but I tell her that's a scam. She'll just blindly send money every month and never check. I live here. I need to know what goes on. So to humor me, she does both." Mebuki pulled a door open to reveal a small half-bath. It was tidy. The vanity was press-wood. The mirror was round and both were painted white. The porcelain sink was glittering; it was so clean. "She probably would have just paid a guy to take a look around here, and not question the invoice he gave her. That girl is a sucker," Mebuki tutted. She refocused her ire on him once more. The translucent blond hairs on his arms stood on end. Minato braced himself mentally for what was to come out of her mouth. "Don't tell me that you don't have any friends."

Not many. Maybe not even one - it feels like that sometimes.

"I do. The ones I play basketball with once a week," he said instead because honesty was not always the foot to lead with, in his experience.

"So what's wrong with you?" Mebuki asked him point blank, abandoning all facade of tact. "A man like you, one with a job, no kids, a full head of hair, height, good temperament, and genes should have been married by now. At least once!"

He feigned reflection and introspection when in reality the only thing he was trying to determine was whether it was permissible to laugh, or if he should feel some semblance of offense. A distinction without difference. Silence granted quite a bit of room for interpretation. Room to react and reframe the parameters of the discussion.

Things aren't always simple. Black and white.

"I've had more than my fair share of bad luck when it comes to relationships, Ms. Haruno," he coated the oversimplification with sincerity while his gaze was locked with hers.

Breath of one small lie,

Spinning a web endless tales—

Truth lost in construct.

Mebuki's face pinched together in what he assumed was the calibration of her bullshit meter. Green eyes did not betray any modicum of positive emotion as they bore into him, searching for what he kept guarded away from the world. Hidden under layers of a composed demeanor.

"Carry salt," she said without color with her arms crossed over her chest. "Do you like udon?" Her stare transitioned to expectant.

"I like udon."

"Good, get to work and by the time you're done, lunch will be ready. What was Sakura's excuse this time to stiff you with the groceries?" Mebuki's reflection did not soften the judgment in her mirrored eyes even minutely.

"She's helping out with a new initiative at the hospital for-"

"Forget I asked. There's always something with that girl. Who can bother keeping up?" Mibuki flicked her wrist dismissively, not even waiting to hear the excuse he had rehearsed so he would get it just right. Sakura did not need to remind him. He knew exactly what he was getting himself into this time around.

With a sigh, Minato set the bag on the sink, opening it before he crouched to get a better angle on the supposed leak that was driving up the water bill. The vanity was narrow, he would have the lie back at an angle - something his yoga-pant-wearing doctor would definitely not be happy about, that much he knew.

xXx

The tower of blocks clattered across the table. "This is bullshit," Sasori threw the Jenga piece in his hand for the sake of thoroughness. His previous agitation of being left in the car - "like a damn dog", Sasori's words not hers - left him with a shorter fuse than usual. Minato's frosty reception did not help matters in the slightest. The change in him was sudden, the moment Sasori had entered the room, the lightness left Minato and it was replaced by something much heavier. Disapproval was the closest she could come to placing it.

I wonder if being annoyed is preferable to being bored.

Sakura clicked her tongue as she watched Sasori clear the table of the remaining blocks with a sweep of his gangly, boneless arms. They fell onto the soft carpet. "Mature," she quipped, resting her face against her curled hand - unamused. Her elbow was propped on the coffee table while she sat on the rug, leaning into it.

"I thought so." Sasori yawned loudly. He slumped back against the couch. "You got any booze?" A finger twisted near the crown of his head. Crimson danced against the digit.

"I do," she glanced at the clock not-so-subtly. "But you're not getting it from me."

"Stingy," he said without much emotion, lips barely committing to any movement. "You didn't even prescribe the good stuff for the Lieutenant. The man only got shot, you know." He paused to press his lips together. "Heartless," he murmured in a volume loud enough for her to hear.

"Yes, I know. I was there," she rolled her eyes, playing with a block - tapping it against the table while her mind wandered. "Painkillers of that class are regulated. I can't just go around handing them out like candy. And sometimes they do more harm than good."

Especially for certain groups.

"Namikaze isn't the type to get addicted. He would have been fine. You effectively took away the best part of getting shot at," Sasori droned with his eyes closed. He pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing softly.

She did not ask him if he would like water as she had the previous three times he had done the same. "Speaking from experience?" The curiosity was not filtered from her voice. The block stopped producing noise.

"What do you think?" He blinked slowly at her. Without warning he lifted his gray shirt. A dark scar, against pale skin, at his side caught her attention before the dark line of tattoos began.

"It grazed you. A couple of years ago?" She asked him with a frown, speaking to the laceration.

Whoever did your stitches deserves to have their license taken away.

The scar was atrocious. She furrowed her brow.

They used staples! Judging from the still stark coloring, it doesn't look like he followed good after-care instructions.

"Eh about two and a half," he wiggled his fingers, releasing the cloth from his grasp. The scar was hidden away once more. "Was conducting a weapon handling class for the recruits. Called one up to help with a demonstration. It ended up becoming a case study in what not to do. The usual doc was out for the day but thankfully Mutt knew how to pick a lock. The only time he's ever proven to be useful. It was his fault though. What kind of dumbass doesn't know the difference between a loaded gun and an empty one when handing it to an amateur?"

Her face lost color. She drowned him out for a moment. "Oh my god."

He did it himself. He stapled himself shut.

"He had nothing to do with it," Sasori stuck his pinky in his ear and shook roughly, leaving her to wonder just what was between his ears. "The cadet washed out. Joined the money side. His brain is better suited behind a desk. By far. Best weeks of my life."

Sasori unsupervised in a medical clinic is akin to a child in a candy shop. Not good.

She fought every urge to glance at the door in her kitchen. She did not want to plant an idea in his head. Not even a little bit. "Is that how it started?" She asked him with a forced casualness.

"The details are boring and tedious," he dismissed with a shrug what had to be a harrowing ordeal. Traumatic none-the-less. "I'm used to it. No big deal."

I disagree. I'm sorry that happened to you, Sasori.

He tapped his fingers to his forehead repeatedly.

"Where do you get your nails done?" Sakura could not help but admire the purple tips. They were shaped and maintained beautifully. Not a single chip could be found on either hand. "It's gel right?"

He smirked, without tilting his chin down so she could see. "Yeah. A clan joint. They are unmatched when it comes to customer service. Say the word and I'll take you so they can take care of you."

As in take care of…or take care of?

"I'm good, thank you," she said a little too quickly. His dry chuckle said as much without the use of words.

"Live a little, Doc," he smacked the back of the sofa as if it were a drum. He kept a rhythm. "They do clay baths, facials, seaweed wraps, full body steams, messages of all kinds. Your imagination is the limit. If you do go, ask for Jun. I thought I was high, he was that good. If only I could take his fingers and put them on a puppet arm, then I could get a deep tissue massage whenever I wanted. On whim really." He laid his index finger across his upper lip as if deep in thought at the prospect of doing just that. His black jogger pants made a sound every time he moved.

"Thanks for the tip," she grabbed the cardboard box that the game came in. Seeing how the chances of them playing another game were at an all-time low, she began to pick up the wooden blocks. They were not fun to step on. She ignored his eyes; even as her skin pricked.

"Doc," he drawled out, dragging out her misery. "You have nice skin."

She blinked at the unexpected compliment. And that too from someone between six and seven years her junior. "Thank you, Sa-"

"It would look amazing wrapped around my puppet's head. You'd be young forever," he snapped his teeth at her, "think about it."

What a creep. And you expected anything different from him?

She repressed a shudder as it would only encourage him. "As tempting as that offer is," she resumed picking up blocks as if a madman in her home had not just asked her to consider peeling her face. "I'll pass."

"You're no fun." All signs of life beyond the bare minimum left his face. His jaw was slack and his eyes glossy. "At least you're not wearing a garbage bag made out of fleece. An eyesore," he gestured to her sage sweater and black lounge pants.

God, Minato. When are you getting back?

She reached into her back pocket and checked her phone, putting it away with a sigh when the home screen reflected no change in state.

Guess you and Mom and BFFs now.

"So booze?" He asked the ceiling, his fingers were steepled together. Each one was wearing a chunky silver ring. Each ring was unique, unlike the nature of their owner's questions.

Minato!

She nearly slammed her forehead against the table in frustration.

xXx

What the hell was that?

He swallowed back a hiss at the sharp pain in his shoulder. He played off the shake of his hand by poking at the mound of white cream topped with a bright red cherry in a clear crystal bowl with a metal spoon. He waited, willing himself to be hyper-aware of that particular part of himself. He waited for any more surges of pain, sudden dampness, or general hints that he should excuse himself from the room and inspect more closely as to just what that was. But the pain dulled just as quickly as it came and there was nothing. Absolutely nothing and that had him accepting his fate with defeat.

When Mebuki had offered him salad after their meal he had been slightly confused as to the order in it being served but he had chalked it up to Mebuki being Mebuki, now as he held the so-called salad in his hand, he realized just how ignorant and foolish he had been. He brought the filled spoon to his nose. He sniffed. All he got was the artificial sweetness from the canned pineapple. At least he thought it was pineapple.

Why does fruit need more sugar?

Ambrosia salad. He did not get it. At all. He moved some of the salad around so it appeared that he had eaten it. He had tried to lure Cheddar into clearing the bowel while Mebuki was still in the kitchen - the woman had insisted they eat in the living room in front of the TV as it was time for her evening show - but Cheddar wanted no part of interacting with the concoction. At all. Minato smiled automatically when the blonde-haired woman clad in a white wool knee-length dress sat down on the seat next to him. She crossed her legs at the knee. Her tights were hot-pink and opaque.

"You must be serious about my daughter," Mebuki claimed as she fiddled with the remote, squinting at the numbers despite the fact her reading glasses were hanging from a chain around her neck. "The fact you're here again. I fully expect you to ask for blessings." She sighed in satisfaction when she found the channel she was seeking. "Have you seen this show? A vapid couple that should probably be divorced goes looking for their next house to buy."

It's probably all staged for views.

"No," he shook his head. "No, I haven't seen the show," he clarified at the absolutely livid glint in Mebuki's eye. "And yes, I am serious about Sakura."

And for the blessings…it's early.

Way too soon to be thinking about that even if Mebuki never failed to bring it up somehow - every time there was a diamond commercial on the TV (which seemed to be every third one - something very telling about the target demographics), her less than passive comments, they were watching a show where women were shopping for their dream wedding dresses. It was blatant and in his face. And not even a couple of hours removed from her interrogation trying to get to the bottom of why he was single - or what was wrong with him as she had so bluntly put it.

"Good," Mebuki accepted, gruffly. She chewed on her salad. "Everyone leaves Sakura. Everyone," she let out a long sigh like she had been holding that onto her chest for a while now. "Except me," she shook her head. "Only for her to leave me here with the damn cat."

Cheddar meowed in lazy offense. Suddenly the salad did not seem so bad. He shoveled some in his mouth before Mebuki could ask him another loaded question that he was well out of his depth to answer.

xXx

Each step up the stairs was growing more heavy than the previous. The salad was a boulder in his stomach. His shoulder ached. The air was not cold enough to numb it any more than his jacket was warm enough to soothe it. He paused in the middle of the steps to catch his breath. He found himself thankful for perhaps the first time that his best friend was not here to see him. He would never let it go. Especially after all the crap he had given him over the years for taking up smoking so young and so frequently. The lazy-ass with a big brain would not run out of ways to bring it up, probably when he was least expecting it too.

The keys - hers - and dog tags jingled in his hands in encouragement to keep moving. He was out in the open after all. The sun had set. The street lamp on the sidewalk had gone out. The fluorescent tubing needed to be replaced. But he knew the city had better things - higher priorities - than fixing a light in a small neighborhood in Tani, where the average first responder response time was over an hour and that was if they showed up at all. So he understood the need for her clinic. But he was also realistic. There was only so much one person could do before burnout set in. And judging by how her days bled into her nights only to become day again, it was not far. Yet, as he dragged his feet to the last step, he realized he did not have a leg to stand on. Not really.

At least she's not in Koke or Rutsu.

The only two neighborhoods that were worse than Tani and coincidently further south and east toward the borders. Konoha - the city center - operated as if they were not even incorporated areas. Tani was safe in comparison. Maybe it was the commute or the lack of reliability in the trains from those stations. Or maybe Tani was the nexus between valuing her safety and saving money.

Five hundred ryo a month. That's the difference between the best area of Tani and the worst area in Mori. Just five hundred ryo.

Because the security aspect of her home and clinic was very much a factor. She had substances and goods that were in high demand on the black market. Part of him was surprised that she had not been robbed, by a low-level dealer or wannabe, at weapon-point. Before he could delve too far down the prospect of humanity redeeming itself, he thought back to her neighbor. Ms. Honda. She had checked in on her. She left little notes on her door. Maybe there was something more to it after all. Maybe Sakura was not as vulnerable as he believed. But the whole thing still made him nervous. Not that he could ever voice it even if he wanted to.

She loves it.

When he interacted with Hiro - the boy she had treated at her clinic - her eyes lit up in a way he had only seen in pictures. Pictures that seemed to end somewhere around the time she started high school. Only for a couple of sporadic ones to crop up here and there on the pages of the red-leather-bound picture book. And then it jumped right into what had to be undergrad then med-school. Usually of just Sakura and her friends or with Mebuki. Never any more of Sakuto. None of Mebuki's mechanic husband.

He moved through the keys until he found the one that was the simplest among the ones in the ring. He had just positioned it to slide in the lock when the slit changed orientation. His eyes raised just in time to find hers when the door opened.

"Welcome back," she smiled at him softly with relief hidden away in her features.

He smiled. The tiredness seemed to leave him then and there, all at once and without warning. He crossed the threshold still wearing that very smile.

Door creaks open wide,

Familiar scents embrace me-

Day's weight melts away.

xXx

She was hovering. Lingering after asking about his time spent at her mother's. She had listened. She had reacted. She had laughed, she had been embarrassed, she was not fully there. She was as distracted as she was close. But still too far removed from just saying what was weighing on her mind. She was trying to be subtle about it. The first time she had used the excuse of bringing him some green tea, to warm him up from the inside out. "It's light!" She had insisted when he tried to decline by stating he was full. The salad was not allowing him to breathe. The second time she had brought him a plateful of cookies to have with the tea. Again, she watched - unmoving - until he finally gave in and offered to split half with her. She accepted with disproportionate relief. The third time it was to take the empty tea cup away. The fourth was to tuck a blanket around him. Each time he thought she was that much closer to working up her nerve to say something only for her to lose it at the last minute. Now, she was standing there with one slippered foot over the other and her hands tucked away into her too-long sleeves. He imagined that she was twiddling her fingers.

"Sakura," he was staring right at her the whole time. But saying her name while doing it eliminated all doubts that he had failed to notice the progression of the antics. "What is it?"

"Are you comfortable?" She asked in a voice an octave - maybe even two - higher than her usual. "Should I get you the heat pad? Your shoulder must be so sore. Or some painkillers?" She moved to presumably get the heat pad and maybe snag some painkillers on her way back to him.

"I'm fine," he spoke with patience, halting her restless movements. "What's wrong?" Because why else would she be acting this way? So antsy and timid.

"Nothing," she denied, quickly.

Minato swallowed a sigh. "Thoughts race like wind," he pictured the words that had been on his screen in the air, reading them from nothing there. "Chaos blooms in silence deep, peace is a distant dream."

"What?" She asked him, lines marring her forehead.

Minato blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice. Sakura's confusion did not recede. Nothing clicked in the deep silence.

She mustn't have read that one.

"Sakura," he cleared his throat. He could feel the tips of his ears gather heat. "It might feel better to put it out there - talk it out."

"You're not all talked out after spending five hours with my mom?" She asked in light jest.

"Two and a quarter. Two hours were spent on travel. And forty-five minutes at the stores. I'm not talked out or listened out. I'm fine," he said with inviting softness. Like a well-worn couch level of comfort.

She tucked her hair behind her ears. She moved to sit next to him, knees turned in his direction with her palms curled around them. "I don't know if something is wrong per se. I'm probably just being way too paranoid and overly cautious. It's probably nothing. But the timing of it is suspect. And I don't want to not say something and have it turn out to be something because that would be irresponsible and reckless, not to mention it could be dangerous. And the last thing I want is for someone I know to get hurt or make your life harder than it already is and…," she bit down on her lip in a manual stop, looking to him for aid - to save her from the onslaught of words she pushed out and the ones still waiting for their turn.

"It's okay," he reached out and squeezed her hand. "More information is better than no information. Being overly cautious is better than the alternative."

She seemed to relax at that. "Okay," she breathed. "Okay," she nodded her head. She reached behind her with the not the hand he did not acknowledge to himself that he was still holding. She held her phone to him. It required work to not jump to the wrong conclusion. "While you were driving back, I got phone calls from a number I don't recognize. Three of them, one right after the other. And they left a voicemail after the third call."

He let go of her hand, trading it for her phone. He could see the notifications that aligned with her story.

It's not a number I recognize.

Not even Hora had the number to the burner. No one else did. So the odds were slim that it was for him. He kept his phone on at all hours as it were - he did not get to clock off. There was no reason for someone to know her number other than the ones she told herself.

The possibility of it being wiretapped is effectively zero.

The burner was clean - new.

"It's probably just a telemarketer or a spam call," she sounded like she was convincing herself more than him. "I didn't know if it would be stupid to do a reverse number lookup on the phone or my computer. I figured I would wait for you before doing anything?" Her voice raised at the end of the word in question. She was searching his face for indication, no doubt that she did the right thing.

"That's good," he lowered his eyes back to the glowing screen. "If you listen to the voicemail, it won't give away your location or open us up to being tracked. Did they text you or email you anything? Maybe with a link?" He let out a breath when she shook her head.

"No texts, no emails. I didn't click anything," she pointed to the phone. "That's exactly how it was."

"Okay," he clicked the voicemail icon. "It's a Konoha area code before the new one was introduced." It was out of necessity. Konoha's borders had increased and they needed more numbers to accommodate the need. "So it's likely not spam." The spam bots had the new code. "You should listen to the voicemail." He held the phone for her. She made no move to reach for it back. He measured the words. "Would you like me to be here when you listen to it?"

She lowered her eyes to somewhere in her lap. Her fingers tightened around her kneecaps. Probably born out of frustration in herself for feeling the way she did. For the hesitancy. "Please," she murmured just loud enough to be intelligible even if he had to strain his ears.

"I'm right here," he coaxed, gentle and reassuring.

With a nod, she took the phone. Her torso moved up and then down to accommodate a deep inhale and exhale. She glanced at him to gauge his readiness perhaps. He nodded wordlessly. She tapped the speakerphone icon first before pressing the play button on the burner phone held between them.

There was a second of silence. Maybe two. The small blue circle moved further to the right on the progress bar.

"Sakura," a deep baritone voice called out. Minato was studying her face already so he saw the color drain from it as if all the blood had been let out from her body. "This is your-"

It happened so fast. She clicked the pause button followed by the speakerphone icon, all before rising to her feet. She left the room with hasty steps. The door slammed shut. The lock was engaged next. Then there was nothing. Just silence.

He blinked at the closed door, waiting. Seconds built up to minutes which were collected in groups of tens. She emerged from the room twenty-seven minutes later. He straightened his spine at the sight of her. Her face was blank. Her eyes were clear. The cushions sank as she sat next to him. She turned on the TV. She leaned back in the cushions, surfing the channels as she played with the blue drawstrings of her hoodie. Nothing held her attention and yet, she had all of his.

The part of his brain that was working told him to correct the orientation of his head because while she was silent, she was volatile. He could sense that from her. He turned to face the TV. He watched the channels flicker quickly enough to give him motion sickness. The build up in the drains would have to wait. He was not going to be granted access. Not tonight.

This is your…who...what?

Her hand was shaking as she brought her phone to her ear. She listened to the line trill. Back and forth she walked in a straight line in her room. Door locked. Jaw clenched. Anger slipped through the barriers she had put up. Twelve hours. She received the voicemail twelve hours ago and that was not enough - nowhere near enough - to curb her anger any, waiting ten times as long might not make a difference. Her pace was impacted when a voice answered the phone.

"Hello?" Mebuki asked.

"Mom," her teeth just stopped short of gnashing together. Sakura released a breath for no less than three seconds. It made no difference. "Yesterday your ex-husband called. He left a message," she ran an agitated hand through her hair, pulling at the strands hard enough that the threat shook the roots. She held them in place on top of her head and off her neck where they had sat like a noose.

"Sakura," her mother sighed in resignation. There was a long pause or at least Sakura thought it was. She waited until her patience gave way.

"Any idea how he got my number, Mom?" She accused without directness.

Please tell me it wasn't you. Please tell me you didn't do this. Even if it's a lie.

"I gave it to him," she said. Because Mebuki was not one to tell Sakura what she wanted to hear.

"Mom!" She groaned in frustrated betrayal. She did not know what was worse: Mebuki giving him her number or being so unbothered in admitting to it.

How could you?

She asked in her head because she could never bring herself to ask out loud, setting herself up for even more disappointment wrapped in heartbreak.

"Do not take that tone with me, Sakura. He is your father!" Mebuki snapped harshly. So harsh that if Sakura was any less angry, she would have flinched.

"He stopped being that a long time ago," Sakura failed to hold her tongue but she was not sorry. No, she only had the bandwidth for anger. Right now, all she saw was a wall of red. Rage. "You shouldn't have given him my number, Mom. You shouldn't have told him what you did."

You shouldn't have done this to me.

"Sakura," Mebuki sighed yet again but this time, her tone had more than a subtle hint of impatience. "Why aren't you at work?" How quickly the tonal shift switched to demanding, that too was familiar but not in any way that brought comfort - not even remotely.

"I called in sick," she lied without remorse.

"Are you alright?" Concern, concern bled into Mebuki's voice but Sakura was not moved or softened.

"No," Sakura shook her head, knowing full well Mebuki could not register the action. Just like how Mebuki could not observe how Sakura was continuing to pace. But she could hear the slight breathlessness of the word. Her daughter was so angry that she was shaking. Nothing was stable. "I'm not, Mom."

I'm not okay.

"Well, you don't sound congested. So it can't be the flu. Just rest up. Only God knows how ragged you've been running yourself with new whatever it is. You make it impossible not to worry about you, Sakura. Did Minato-"

"Mom," she cut her off, not taking stock of how quick Mebuki was to move the conversation to anyone but her - her frustrated daughter. "Why did you tell him? Why did you tell him anything at all?"

…When I asked you not to. When I asked you not to tell him anything about me. How could you tell him?

"Whether or not you want it to be true, he is your father. It's not like you would have told him yourself." Her mother reprimanded her through the phone, all those miles away. "Your father has the right to know."

No.

"He has no rights. He gave up his rights. But you keep trying to hand them back to him." She shook her head in dumbfounded disbelief. Her grip around her phone tightened. Her fingers were so sweaty that she had to readjust the placement.

"Did you call him back?" Mebuki asked in a measured voice. One without hope. A learned tone that was reinforced through predictable, repetitive behavior. Consistent.

"I blocked his number." She lowered herself to the foot of her bed. The shaking in her shoulders had moved to her knees. She did not trust their integrity anymore.

He threw us away! Like we were nothing.

"Sakura," her mother said with exasperation. "Why are you being so stubborn?"

Why can't you see?

She closed her eyes over the hot tears she refused to shed. She had cried enough over the man in her childhood. She refused to give him anymore. Just like how she had nothing to say to him, she had nothing to give him. She was done. She was left completely hollow.

Why can't you accept that?

"M-mom," her voice broke, she covered her mouth to hold back a shudder but it was too late. She breathed heavily.

"Sakura, he was my husband for almost thirty years," Mebuki reminded her with a scolding that lacked any trace of gentleness. "You can't tell me not to talk to him."

I never asked you to.

She had no right to ask her mother to. Her mother was an adult. It was her life. And Sakura respected that. She respected her decision even if she did not agree with it.

"Mom, I know," her voice was more in her control now. "All I ask is that you don't talk about me." That was it. That was her only line.

Am I being too unreasonable?

"Everyone has moved on. You need to move on too. You can't keep hanging onto all this anger. You need to let go. You're killing yourself."

"I'm fine," a growl of frustration at her mother's inability to see her side, ripped through Sakura's raw throat. "I've been fine. I don't need his money. I don't need his resources. I don't need his concern. I don't need his time of day. I don't need his advice. I didn't need it then. I don't need it now. Tell him to stop calling. Tell him to stop wasting his time. It's valuable. Tell him-"

"Stop yelling at me," Mebuki snapped at her - voice struck Sakura like an open-faced slap.

Sakura blinked. She had not realized that her volume was rising. She breathed. "I'm sorry, Mom." She lowered her head. The guilt on the back of her neck made it daunting to keep it upright. "I'm sorry," she repeated in a hoarse whisper. "I'm sorry I yelled," she apologized yet again, with twisted anguish. "I love you, M-."

She heard a little chime. She swallowed thickly at the lump in her throat. She peeled her phone from her ear. Her home screen greeted her. Blank. She stared at it until it went dark. Her own reflection judged her. She leaned forward until she was no longer sitting. She pulled herself mostly upright. She tapped the phone against her palm. Over and over, to the point that the cumulative pain almost registered. Her bottom lip was between her teeth. Her pink slippers dragged against her carpeted floors. Her eyes darted to the closed curtains. Air, she needed air. Sakura tugged on her black zip-up hoodie that had been flung carelessly across the wicker lid of her laundry hamper. She regarded her shorts. They were on the casual side, they were strictly indoor clothes, and it was supposedly cold outside but she figured her anger would keep her warm. Who was she trying to impress anyway? She raked a hand through her hair, mussing the strands.

"A walk," she said to herself. "A walk will help." The air in her room was stale. It was suffocating. "Maybe even a run."

I'll keep going until I throw up.

Because something had to give. She had to make space somehow, someway before she exploded. There was zero duality in her steps as she made her way to the door. She turned the knob and stepped into the very short hallway. He looked up from the small table in the kitchen. He was on her computer, pretending really hard to not appear so guilty.

He heard the whole damn thing. It's fine. He and Mom can chat about it next week. They can talk about how horrible I am. Their own little support group.

"I'm going on a walk," she announced, voice strong. She would not suffer fools and that included herself and her self-destructive tendencies. "I won't be long."

That had him on his feet. "Sakura." He was frowning at her - not happy at all.

Join the club, Blondie.

She spared him no further consideration as she half-turned with the intention of crossing the living room to the shoe rack by the door. She would have to go without socks today. She had not thought that detail through and there was no way in hell that she was turning around now. He might use the additional time to try to talk some sense into her and she would not have that.

"Sakura," he was in front of her now, blocking the door from her line of sight with his broad, broad shoulders and tall frame.

Out of my way!

"Move," she warned him as tactfully as she could. For all she cared if some Uchiha was lurking in a bush to take her out, he would be doing her a favor.

"I need you to talk to me," he held up his hands, yet another barrier for her to overcome.

Need…need…need!

She snapped. "Everyone and their damn needs!" She shouted at him, lashing out so that maybe someone would hurt like she hurt. "Everyone! You! My mom! My f-father!" Her pupils were dilated, consuming practically the entirety of her iris. "What about my needs? Huh?" She asked incredulously, staring him down with defiance that would not be appeased or placated so easily. "What about my needs?" She repeated with aggression. "Huh?!"

Why does no one care about them? About me?

"What do you need, Sakura?" He countered her trembling anger - the one that made the ground she was standing on quake - with steadfast calm. Unyielding. Unfazed by it and that just pissed her off even more. "What do you need?"

To get the hell away!

"Air."

"Okay." Slowly his hands started to close the distance without her permission but even as she saw them coming, she did nothing to discourage their arrival. She felt them settle on her shoulders. "Breath with me."

With you?! Who the hell do you think you are?

She slapped a hand away. "You don't understand." She could not breathe. That was the problem. She needed to be outside in air that was not mostly carbon dioxide from their expended breaths and exhales of the furnace that should have been deep cleaned five years ago. She needed something other than leftover air. Air that he should not even be breathing. She needed fresh, uncorrupted-by-bullshit air.

I need out!

As badly as a happy, beloved, lap dog did when the front door was left open. It was primal. It was instinctual. It was all she craved. It was all she could think about. Out. She wanted out.

"Help me understand," he held her face between his palms. "Help me understand."

She gulped, loudly, shamelessly. She even forgot that her lips were supposed to hold closed together. His earnestness cut away some of the smoke; the smoke of the fire that burned inside of her. The fire that ate away at her every time she got angry. The more she fueled it, the more of herself she lost. She inhaled deeply to ready herself to scream. At him until her lungs gave out - abandoning her too.

"I'm right here," he comforted, his thumbs gliding across her cheekbones slowly, dragging out the torment, not giving her anger any special attention. He disrespected it so thoroughly that it was mind-boggling.

Touch starved. She was so damn touch-starved that it was pitiful how easy it was for her to crumble. She gazed into an expanse of blue. She need not picture the ocean. He was encompassing.

"T-the," she licked her lips, unsatisfied with the weakness breaking up her voice but unable to do anything about it. She was in freefall. Just when would she slap on the surface flat on her back? Gasping and sputtering for breath? This ocean of fire she was drowning in.

Help.

She could never ask but he offered it all the same. Right there in front of her. An offer that was simply too tempting to resist any longer. She closed her eyes and gave in. She was not brave enough to look him in the eye while she did it.

"The person on the voicemail was my father," her voice was scratchy. She brought a hand to her throat - fingers curling around it. Tight. Enough pressure to create evidence of the presence of her fingertips.

"Come here," he said softly when the weight of her words became too much. A hand slipped from her face down to the inside of her wrist - coaxing it away before it could become a vice. He led her toward the accent chair. She sat down, realizing just how wobbly her knees were. Unsteady. Unreliable. Unacceptable.

She watched him leave - but not before he gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze of promise of reunion - following the back of his head as he opened a cabinet. The tap turned on. She cleared her throat. She did not know what he communicated to those fingers by his touch, they were no longer in cooperation as they remained relaxed and not curled and clenched as the rest of her.

"I keep the vodka in the fridge." She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them because she missed having something she could hold onto.

"Maybe later."

She pressed her forehead down on her kneecaps, hiding the disappointment on her face.

"Sakura."

She lifted her head at the sound of her name - in no real hurry. She reached for the glass he held out. It was only when her fingers had securely wrapped around it did he retract his hand. He came to sit on the seat closest to her. She drank slowly. One sip. Then another. Then another. Her movements were more controlled than her sporadic thoughts. She was tired.

Exhausted.

Sakura sighed. She blanched the glass on one of her kneecaps. Her ear was pressed against the back of the chair. She was turned toward him but she could not face him. "My parents married young. They were each other's first love. Their families didn't approve. It only pushed them further into each other. They got pregnant with my brother when they were just nineteen. Barely out of being kids themselves. They were scared. They had no support from either side. They eloped. They struggled. My mom dropped out of college and my dad took a job as an apprentice to a mechanic. The man took pity on their situation. He even rented out a spare room to them on the cheap. Uncle Sakumo."

They named Sakuto after him, after Uncle Sakumo.

She blinked slowly, focusing on the base of her marble table lamp. She had not said that name out loud in years. Decades even. "My brother didn't have much growing up. He went to public school. He didn't have a lot of presents under the tree at Christmas or lavish birthday parties. He couldn't even have friends over like the other kids. But Mom said he never complained or commented. He was always really thankful. Sakuto was really perceptive. He probably knew that our family was not like the others in the neighborhood we were in. They lived in Yuma at the time."

Yuma was one of the more desirable areas in Konoha. It had the most expensive real estate in the market today. The financial district was in Yuma, along with all the high-end brands. The tailoress he got his suits from - Konan of Konan - had her shop in Yuma.

"I was born thirteen years after my brother. My parents had more money and more stability then. They also had more experience. My childhood was different. I had things. I did not want for things. I spoiled and doted on. A brat. I was a huge brat who cried to get my way. And I did. I always got my way." Sakura rubbed at her dry blood-shot eyes, agitating them further with the salt from the clamminess of her fingers.

"They had moved into an apartment before I was born. Sakuto had his own room for the first time. We lived in a house ever since I could remember. Not in Yuma. But close enough. It was small but cozy. Warm. My father bought Uncle Sakumo's shop from him. Uncle Sakumo's wife had just passed away," she made a sympathetic sound with her lips. Sakumo had committed suicide in his grief not too long after. Only for his son Kakashi - around the same age as her brother, a couple of years younger - to find his body.

Selling his shop was a sign of his depression - his desperation.

A sign she was much too young to know to look for and her parents - Sakumo's and Riya's Hatake's closest friends - had missed. Kakashi had been shipped off to live with a distant relative. He came back to Konoha when he turned seventeen. He joined the military under the same company that Sakuto was, they had their basic training together. They were even teammates on a few missions together.

"The shop was doing well. My father's business was growing and so were his connections," she sniffled away the tickle in her nose and throat. "We were happy. My parents were in love. I had my brother. There was so much love in our home. Things were good. Things were really, really good."

Until it all fell apart.

"Sakuto joined the military when he was eighteen, after graduating high school. I think he knew deep down that even with the shop doing well, my parents couldn't afford to send him to the prestigious private universities and no self-respecting med school would consider a public university student even with top grades. Plus he didn't want to leave the country just to go to medical school. He also didn't want our family to take up loans. He was thinking about me. I begged him not to go too far." She clicked her tongue. "He was always looking out for me."

She was too far in the past to register the way he shuffled in his seat as if preparing himself for the drop that he knew was coming; looking for something to tether himself to. His fingers curled around the curve of the armrest, grip tight.

"The military sent him to medical school here in Konoha after he completed a year of basic training out of town. It was nice. He was busy but I saw him nearly every day while he was here. Ever since I was six-seven years old, I wanted to be a doctor like my big brother." She paused with a smile on her face. A smile that would not last. "He was deployed in Uzushio. It was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to be demilitarized. He was there as part of a humanitarian outreach program as Uzushio is the sister city of Konoha. He died overseas. In the fall. I was thirteen."

"I'm sorry," he spoke for the first time. The volume was low, the sentiment was solemn. His stomach was in a knot. And his face, his face so emphatic.

He was the glue that held us together. He was the sun we revolved around.

"It tore my whole world apart. My father grew distant. We were all grieving. He was just doing it in the opposite direction of me and Mom. I was young so I didn't realize what was happening. I missed how he was picking fights over the food being not quite right or at Mom accidentally washing a red sock with his whites. She couldn't do anything right suddenly. Before Sakumo died, he had never so much as addressed her as anything other than 'honey', 'dear', or 'my beloved' - forget raising his voice to her. He was always so jovial. He would crack a smile or joke. He would diffuse the situation. So it was jarring to hear him yell for the first time. At her. At the woman he loved - he called her his heart. It was all he did. It was how he talked to her. The harder she tried to appease him, the more he yelled. The louder he became. It became a habit. It became normal. It was scary to come home from school for even me. It was so much worse for Mom. Mom was in a constant state of fear of what would set him off. I ceased to exist anymore for him. He wouldn't even look at me - right through me, he looked right through me - when I tried to interact with him. It was demoralizing. It made no sense. I went from being his princess to being invisible. I became invisible," she repeated with a hoarse whisper. The pain was still very much raw.

"Everything, all of it stopped bothering me. But that changed too. Eventually, the fighting stopped. Dad stopped coming home after weeks of working late. Sakuto's funeral cost a lot of money, that was his most often-used excuse. It got Mom to stop asking questions immediately. He stopped picking up our calls. One day he was just gone, out of our lives. The house was quiet again during the day. Mom cried at night when she thought I was asleep. We shared a bed. I was terrified she would leave me too. She never made a sound but the bed would tremble because she was shaking from keeping it all in. He served Mom with divorce papers through an attorney."

He left us. Just like that.

Her throat was starting to close up. She drank water to force the issue a little bit longer. She sighed, unable to stop now that she had started. She needed to unload completely otherwise she would implode.

"At Sakuto's second death anniversary, we learned from a relative of his, who was at the small service, that he had remarried and that he already had another kid. A newborn son. With a woman that his family approved of. An arranged setup or something. She had two young daughters from her previous marriage. She came from money. More money than my grandparents did anyway."

"You're Kizashi Haruno's daughter," he said with clear surprise in his voice that bled into his features. It was directed at himself for not making the connection. Sure his hair from the ads and the billboards was faded but it was not all that hard to see that it was still in the pink family. His wife had dark hair and dark eyes. The so-called self-made, family-first man had his family - two girls and a boy all with dark hair and dark eyes - plastered all over Yuma and even a handful all the way down in Tani and beyond. There was a billboard not even a block from Konoha Medical. There was no way she did not see them leering down at her with their same fake smiles.

She nodded her head, utterly defeated. "His business really took off after he married her."

He reinvented himself after the death of his son. Rebranded who Kizashi Haruno is.

It was an understatement. Her father now owned five dealerships in Konoha, along with more than half a dozen repair shops. Just last week, he was cutting a ribbon for the new parking structure he built for the Konoha Mall that had gotten a major facelift. Kizashi Haruno was everywhere.

"The terms of the divorce were not fair at all. Mom trusted him - blinded by her love and devotion for him - and he took advantage of her. Everything was in his name - all the assets. The house, the cars, the credit cards, the bank accounts. Everything. He had lawyers. Mom didn't. She signed away her claim without knowing. He left Mom with nothing but a broken heart and no marketable skills," anger was back in her tone, pulled from her bones. Raw. The pain was raw, a wound that would never heal. It would just get easier to pretend it was not there, eating away at her each and every day. Betrayal of the worst kind. That was what Kizashi Haruno gave them as a parting gift and sentiment.

"We had to live in women's shelters while she struggled to get us back on our feet. But even those we couldn't find peace in. Our stuff kept getting stolen. Our shoes. Our shoes got stolen while we slept. And that was after it took us seven business days to find placement there. Because apparently, it didn't matter if you were homeless outside of work hours. It could wait. The city had ten billion ryu in surplus last year. But homelessness had risen for the seventh consecutive year. Children. The elderly. Veterans. Make it make sense," she looked to him. "Make it make sense."

He shook his head, the words not finding him any more successfully than he found them. Lost. her statement left him feeling lost. Sakura sighed, she ran a hand under her nose. It was slightly red. It matched the rest of her face.

"In one of the worst ones, we were nearly eaten alive by bedbugs. And I was being bullied by some older girls for my hair and forehead - I have his forehead," she paused to commentate with increased venom.

I hate my forehead. If it weren't for Sakuto and Mom I would hate my hair too.

Because it was pink like her father's, it was in the same family. But Sakuto's hair was pink and her mother had given her hair so much love and attention when she was a child that Sakura could do nothing but love it too. All those hours where Mebuki brushed it and sang to her. Those tender thoughts mother and daughter shared during their moments; innocent dreams shared through the high-pitched voice of a child for a supportive ear to encourage. How could Sakura hate her hair when her hair was the reason for it?

"They used to pull on my hair so much - all the time - egging themselves on, convinced it was a bad wig. At the shelter and school." Her hand migrated to the back of her head, her eyes staring off so far into the distance that she had circled back to the past. "Mom just ended up cutting it short so that they wouldn't have anything to grab onto." She had tried her hardest not to cry - because her mother was doing enough of it for the both of them. It barely grazed her chin by the time Mebuki was done. She had no choice, there was no reprieve for the bullying and she never learned to stand up for herself out of fear. Fear of what would happen if she retaliated. Sakura's pink security blanket…gone just like that.

It would have killed him. If Sakuto saw us back then. God, I hope he didn't see us.

"Unbeknownst to anyone, my brother had taken out a life insurance policy for himself before he enlisted. And he had been saving what he could. He left it all to me," she swiped at her cheeks roughly. "But there was a caveat. I only got access to it when I turned seventeen and the money was contingent that I use it either for school or towards a business venture. So we had a lawyer tell us we have six figures sitting in a trust somewhere while we slept on lumpy, dirty mattresses on the floor where the roaches scattering across the floor were so loud it was impossible to sleep."

He did not move. He did not speak. He could only listen. Held in place by the bleakness of it all. It was overwhelming.

"Eventually we turned it around. Mom got a job. I worked part-time under the table at the same place Mom did. During the night shift where there were fewer eyes and I could still go to school. We eventually ended up with a car. I researched assisted housing using the library computers at school during breaks and lunch. I filled out the paperwork for Mom to sign and we found placement quickly thankfully, here in Tani." She rubbed her forehead, her elbow rested on the armrest of her chair. "A couple streets down actually," she answered the silent question on his face.

"You went to med school."

"I did," she smiled without humor. "Konoha University."

The best of the best in Fire and all of the continent really.

"How did you manage that?" He asked. "When you went to public school?" And if it was in Tani it was considerably worse than the one Sakuto went to in Yuma.

She smirked. "By having a senior project that ended up in the news. I made a prototype for a DIY insulin tester. It only cost about twenty ryo to build and the results were eighty-two percent accurate. The daily strips came out to be around twenty-fifths of a ryo."

"That's…," he stared at her, completely flabbergasted, too stunned to finish his thought. Her nonchalance was far from warranted. "You must have had the School of Engineering tripping over its own feet to get you too."

"Oh," she laughed. Dry and stale. Maybe even a little rueful. "I did. I double-majored in biomedical engineering and biology. They made a spot for me, the same with the School of Science. Full ride and then some."

"Wow," he breathed in marvel. She was smart-smart.

"I went back for medical school. I had grants and scholarships. My brother's money remained untouched. Mom and I didn't need it. Between her job, assisted housing, and my meager residency pay, we managed." She tapped her fingers on the armrest.

"The clinic?" He asked her.

Sakuto's clinic.

"The clinic," she confirmed with a soft smile. Some warmth returned to her features, pushing out the heat. "He wanted to help people. That's all he wanted to do. And he is. His clinic is. I want to add a pantry to it as well. One day. Eventually. Nutrition and health are so interconnected it's hard to have one without the other." She lowered her eyes almost shyly. "Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?" She agitated her skin with her sleeve. Minato shook his head. His eyes never left hers. Her stomach was burning but it was different from the fire from before. It was a warm heat. Almost pleasant.

"You're amazing, you know that right?" He asked her openly with eyes filled with admiration. "To go from nothing to this."

"I'm nothing special," she looked away, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"You are," he found her hand in mid-air, he held it in his own. "You are," he repeated with the same conviction - staring her down right to her core.

She smiled timidly. "Apartment and city life was getting hard for Mom - all the stairs, the gray everything, no green, the Goddamn billboards, bench, TV, and radio ads - and with me being gone all the time with work, I decided it would be best for her to move where there was more space a couple of years back. Izumi has that. She's happier - relatively speaking. Fewer panic attacks - less of his face everywhere. She still worries that the neighbors are spying on her from time to time but it's nowhere as bad as it used to be."

It made sense to him now why Mebuki was the way she was. They had been homeless for a time. She had been a woman who lost her son, home, and husband all close together. She was grieving. Her world had crumbled. But she had a daughter to look after - a teenage daughter to keep safe in a very unsafe world. She had to be hypervigilant. She had to be paranoid. She had no one looking out for her. Mebuki had no one to protect her. She was in survival mode constantly for years. Day in and day out. It was ingrained in her. It would take time for her to train it out. PTSD was a hell of a thing.

She keeps saying she'll just enroll in paperless statements but I tell her that's a scam. I live here.

It clicked then for him. Sakura bought Mebuki her house. The one she lived in and the one he had visited. She was the one who gave her mother stability back - a roof over her head that she could not be kicked out of. He did not feel worthy to be in her presence.

Sakura, you're something else entirely.

He never would have guessed such narrow shoulders could bear the weight of so much, for so long and so well.

"She gets lonely. She just wants someone around to talk to, to have listen to her," Sakura's eyes held guilt. "Cheddar was a Godsend really. But sometimes she just wants to see a kind, human face. Thank you for humoring her." She offered him a small smile.

"You don't have to thank me, Sakura." Especially not for something so small and insignificant.

She squeezed his hand before interlacing their fingers, surprising him for a moment before he schooled his features. It was not often someone caught him unaware.

"I want to." She sighed deeply, expelling all of the air in her lungs completely before she breathed in again. "How did we end up here?" She laughed tiredly, setting the empty glass on the end table under the light of the lamp. "With me spilling my guts to you? My whole life story." She seemed to remember the answer as soon as the words left her mouth. She considered their connected hands and how they were both sitting toward the edge of their respective seats. Feet pointed at the other.

"Are you alright?" He asked. He was the first to break the tense silence. The one that was building and building into something formidable and ominous.

"The reason he called," she furrowed her brow, her voice was distant; like she was speaking of someone she did not know very well. She drew circles on the back of his hand with her finger, as far it could reach. "Was because my mom called him, to tell him that she thinks I'm getting serious with someone." She felt his hand clench against hers. She let him go.

"Sakura," Minato breathed her name. "I'm so-"

"And that man called me for the first time in over seventeen years," she scoffed, not hearing his attempted apology, refusing to accept his self-imposed guilt. "Calling himself my father, and asking that I call him back with details on you. Name, age, address, occupation, date of birth, place of birth, all so he can do a background check to make sure that you're not after the supposedly sizable inheritance that he's leaving me." She laughed. It sounded so hollow. So pained. "He didn't outright say that of course."

She pulled her phone from her side, it was tucked against the armrest. She held up her finger to ask for silence - unnecessary as he was unable to find his voice. He could not fathom how someone could just walk away from that little girl smiling in her bumble bee costume. It did not make any sense to him how a father - a man who called himself that - could leave his daughter - his child - willingly. Sakura pressed two buttons in succession. She clicked the side of her phone, raising the volume until it could not go any higher.

"Sakura, this is your father," the deep voice from yesterday filled the room. Minato's teeth pressed together. "Your mother told me you're seeing someone. She said it is getting serious. Now you know your mother, so I want to hear it from you. Call me. I want to know about his man. I want to make sure he is right for you. I want to make sure he has the right intentions. Did you tell him that you're my daughter? Call me."

She lowered the phone to where she had procured it. "This is worse than when he tried to bribe me with a car for my college graduation gift. It even had an obnoxious red bow on it. He thought that if he blindsided me and gave it to me in public I would have no choice but to accept it. He thought wrong." Her arms were crossed over her chest. She kissed her teeth, hissing. "The only time he wants to play daddy is when it suits him." A scoff of disgust left very little to the interpretation of how she felt. "He thinks he has any right to have an opinion, much less a say?"

He didn't even ask you how you were doing. He didn't even pretend to care.

She rocked out of the seat, propelled by her anger and encouraged by his silence. "To appease his own guilt he reached out to Mom a few years back, after my face was on the news. People in his circles probably asked about it. Haruno isn't a big last name. It doesn't belong to a clan. It probably embarrassed him." She was smiling ruefully, relishing in the surprise that must have hit her father in the face when he was drinking his morning coffee and the sound of her voice filled his living room - or maybe family room if she was feeling particularly vindictive with her thoughts.

"He started calling her once a year if that. A couple of minutes. Throws money her way every now and then. Probably in case he wants to run for office in the future. He probably wants to make sure Mom doesn't sling dirt on his good God-fearing name. He tried the same with me. I'm less receptive. We're his dirty little secret you see." She laughed, shaking her head, finding humor in it all somehow. She was almost amused by his antics - the facade she saw through. "That's how cynical I am. That's how cynical I had to become to survive," she murmured more to herself than anything, forgetting that he was even there because she was unloading not to provide him with anything but just to unburden herself. She was making room so that she could take on more and handle more. He might as well have been a decorative pillow - the difference would have been minute: yellow, silent, and stationary.

The light. He took the light from your eyes.

It was not Sakuto's death. It was not merely Sakuto's death that happened once. It was everything that followed, the breaking of a happy home. The loss of love that could never be filled with anything else. A gaping hole in the center of her chest.

Why did you leave me?

Empty hands, a fading light—

Love lost in despair.

"Mom's forgiving. Mom's understanding. Mom gets by on crumbs. Mom still loves him. Mom made and makes excuses for him. Mom says it was the grief. Mom blames herself for not being enough for him during…Mom…I'm not like Mom," she exhaled. The breath was cut with her fury. "He doesn't get a pass. He doesn't get anything from me! He doesn't have a single right to anything." She shook with the force of a tornado. Building, gathering, and funneling her anger.

"Sakura," he called out her name in a test - a gauge of her temperature.

She turned to face him. Arms over her chest. A coffee table between them. Her chin tilted toward her sternum.

"I was six when my parents died," he shared without preface, giving zero option of acclimation and the results were stark. A shock to her system. She blinked, momentarily forgetting her anger - shedding it like a wet winter coat.

"I'm really sorry to hear that," she said with sympathy, her expression softening.

"I was taken in by my best friend's father. Our fathers were childhood friends, just like him and me." He leaned forward on his forearms which rested on his thighs. A hand was wrapped around his wrist. An old wound that he was picking at methodically. "I was six when the Clan took me in."

My fate was sealed long before.

His long departed words came back to her at that moment. Her eyes flooded with emotion anew. Her anger subsided just long enough for her to feel her heart clench. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too," he smiled without warmth - a shell of what the gesture could contain. "My memory of my mother has all but faded. And the ones I have of my father, I'm not sure how much is real and how much is what my uncle told me being written over what was. My mom was gentle. Patient. Always laughing. And my dad? My dad was kind. Really kind. Other than that? It's a blur. A big blur. I don't remember what they sound like anymore. My mom's laugh is just silent. My dad's voice sounds like nothing."

A sympathetic sound left her. "Sound is the first thing to go. Memories are most closely associated with smell. Do you still have some of your parents' things still?" She asked even if she knew in her heart of hearts it was a losing battle. Time eroded all.

"In storage," he shook his head. "Their clothes lost their scent a long time ago."

I'm so sorry.

"I'm telling you this because," his hand fisted around his loose dark green jacket. "I know what it's like to lose a father. I know how lonely it is to go through life without that guidance - without that hand on your head." To go through life without that feeling, he knew what it was like. He knew what it felt like to never feel safe. That void could not be filled with anything else. The lack of security - stability - was too great an obstacle for a child to overcome without some form of lasting mark.

The lines and curves of her face pinched together. She placed a palm on the table, she leaned forward. They were closer to eye level now. "My father isn't dead," she spat, hissing out the words that were meant to cause recoil. "I only wish he was," she added, not caring how it made her sound. "At least that way, I would still be holding on to him with love instead of spite." Her lip curled into a cruel snarl, corroborating that her words were wholeheartedly sincere. She hated him. For what he did and for the damage he continued to cause.

"It's not the same," Minato concluded calmly, even going as far as agreeing. "But does it mean it hurts any less? Or make the loss any smaller?" His words like a bell resounded off the walls of the small space, the vibrations moving along her spine up to her ears for the second time.

She faltered just as the tears pricked in the back of her eyes. "Damn it," she pushed out in a breath. She lowered her head. The first tear pelted the table. By the fifth, her arm was starting to shake. "I hate him," she shook her head, feeling hands around her shoulders once more. "I'm angry," she breathed, hot and volatile.

"It's okay to be angry." He pressed her to his chest, gathering her into his lap; the table - what had been her support - pushed aside as nothing more than a nuisance.

"I'm hurt," she said through a sob, bunching her fingers in his pullover indiscriminately, inhaling through her open mouth.

"It's okay to be hurt."

"He left us." Her tears soaked the first few layers of cotton. She heaved for a breath, begging for just one clean, clear, deep breath. "He left me."

"I'm sorry." His hand moved up and down her spine, an arm around her shoulders that held her tightly. It was a good thing too because her bones had liquified. She leaned in heavily.

"He left her alone. He left me. He abandoned me."

Everyone leaves Sakura.

He hugged her closer.

"He threw us away like we were nothing to him," her voice grew small before it cracked. "Then…then he had a replacement baby! For Sa-Sa-Sa," she wailed loudly with no sense of self-awareness, lost in the strain of not being able to say her brother's name.

He closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose, gripping his composure. "I'm sorry, Sakura."

He left us…all of us. I'm so alone.

She had to deal with everything alone in some variety of it. Mostly alone, completely alone, partially alone. Always alone. That was the commonality that tied it together.

"I'm here."

She tilted her head up. Her green eyes shone under her pink lashes made dark and heavy by her tears. She stared at him with more than a trace of desperation. "You're here?" She asked softly, closer to a pant than actual words. Unsure.

"I'm here," he assured her, placating her, applying pressure to her cheek as he swept up the tears to drive the point home. He was real. He was here. He was really here.

"You won't leave?" She asked in the same manner, tangling her fingers into his top even more. Her knees pressed against his ribs.

"I won't leave."

"Okay," she sniffled, bringing a hand to the back of his neck. Her fingers playing with the soft hair. Shaggy. She twisted, gripping the sunshine-yellow strands. He tracked down the remainder of her tears on her cheeks with the pad of his thumb. Brushing them away with tenderness. Gentle.

"I'm right here, Sakura." He whispered, his breath fanning her face. Right there. He was right there. She could feel his heartbeat under her palm. Steady and calm.

Warm.

"Okay." She lowered her eyelids. Her lashes fluttered lazily. She tilted her head, barely moving at all. Their noses brushed, sending a jolt down his spine - a distraction for a split second but that was all it took. She kissed him. Sealing her mouth against his. Eyes closed and breath hot. Mouth sloppy. Tongue swiping to ask for further entry. Lips filled with salt.

An access that was not granted.

His eyes remained open. He did not blink. He did not move. Not even when she pulled away. Embarrassed. She fumbled to free his shirt; the fabric wrinkled in the pattern created by her weakness. She used her arms to create separation. But he did not budge. He held her to him. Breathing in the scent of her sweet shampoo. Deeply. Vanilla. Warm.

"Sakura," he said her name gently, just able to hold himself back from licking his lips, to catch the remnants of her warmth with his tongue.

"You don't have to say anything," she cleared her throat, refusing to look in his direction even if she ceased to fight his embrace. His message was received loud and clear. She laughed. It was a little unhinged. "I just lost my mind for a bit. All that teasing."

"Sakura," he began without really knowing where he would end up. The pressure was great. The potential for devastation was not lost on him.

"It's fine," she shook her head, pressing her teeth down on her lips. She sniffed. "You only regret the things you do right?"

If only.

Her statement was naive but now was not the time nor the place. Not when he could feel - he could hear - her walls rise up higher and higher around her. He held her chin. She flinched. Her eyes were still avoiding him and he did care for it. He tilted her head back. Just enough. He met her all the way with a featherlight kiss. Lashes pressed up together in a blond fringe. She reacted once over her shock. Timid. Unsure. Reserved. Her lips moved against his, never deepening the kiss. Always following his lead. That way, she did not run the risk of assuming. He pulled back but a fraction. Their noses maintained touch.

"I've wanted to do that for a while," he admitted with an uneven smile that was entirely too endearing.

"Could have fooled me," she dispelled a puff of air. Annoyed that they were using their mouths for this: more talking.

"Are you alright?" He asked with discernible concern.

"No," she shook her head, eyes swimming with too much for anything to be discernible.

"Sakura," he grazed his knuckles against the underside of her jaw. Slowly. Glacial. "I don't want to take advantage of you."

She laughed, surprising even herself with the way it sounded. "Minato, that's sweet but you're misreading the situation."

Badly. I'm the one taking advantage of you.

He was not deterred by the attempt to get him off-kilter. "Pause," he said every bit as much to himself as he said to her. "And breathe the air," he exhaled his breath for her to breathe in. "Moments slow like falling leaves." A hand smoothed out the furrow of her brow. "Wisdom blooms in calm."

Sakura's breath was on his face. Hot and exasperated. "Use your words, Minato. Don't count on Sumida to bail you out when shooting me down," she said with the dryness of her unacceptance. "Don't ruin another thing for me."

It's the least you can do, Blondie.

"Sakura, I don't want you to regret this," he said with enough clarity for both of them. Maybe. Because he was murky on her last offhand comment - too indirect and open-ended to what she could be referring to. But he would not miss the forest for the trees. Not now. "I don't want either of us to regret this."

She exhaled slowly, her eyes cloudy and red. "Act to suffer once, do not to suffer twice," she countered. "For even nothing is not without risk," she spoke her challenge with a low breath. Lashes fluttering like the wings of a moth.

"Regret is the established price of the enlightenment from a fleeting kiss," Minato completed with a murmur, pressing his lips against hers, eyes blinking closed as he swallowed her breathless, needy sigh.

Chapter Text

"Wow, that's crazy," she murmured in a voice much softer than her typical volume when speaking on the phone. Absent-mindedly, she inspected her nails. They needed attention, so she gave it to them, if even only partially. Her head was nestled against a pile of pillows. Soft pink tresses were thrown haphazardly against white silk - because both her hair and her skin never looked better so it was one thing she could not move away from. The hand she was studying moments prior ran through the strands, pulling at them to separate. She felt a hangnail being agitated on a downward tug. She rolled her eyes up and glued them to the ceiling. She counted the cracks for the second time. Time was moving abnormally slowly.

Or it could be that I'm just restless.

Because her heartbeat was far out of resting parameters.

"Are you even listening to me, Forehead?" Ino huffed on the line, breathing with annoyance right in her ear. "Because it feels like you're brushing me off."

Does every-every-other word count?

"I am. You were saying how Hikari has been dating Hyuuga the paramedic for six months and she didn't tell any of us," she summarized in a monotone, intentionally leaving out the part where they were discovered in the back of an ambulance going at it like a pair of bunnies - Ino's words, not hers - all because an attending with a group of interns misheard the charge nurse thus pulling open the doors to ambulance seven and not eleven as he was supposed to, giving everyone more than they had bargained for. Sakura could not help but think - hope - they sanitized the ambulance box thoroughly before some poor person hanging on for dear life was back there. Sakura grimaced at the snare of tangles that she came across, having no one to blame but herself and her own actions. Again.

Wonder what you would say about me. What would they say about me if they knew?

"What a crypt," Ino pouted. Sakura did not have to work hard to imagine it. "She could have told me at my birthday party. It would have been a better - more interesting at least - birthday present than what she settled on."

It's the thought that counts not.

"Maybe she thought it was too early or that it would take the spotlight off of you," Sakura offered the possibility without much forethought. Ino was more radiant than the sun itself in the silver number she had worn. She commanded the room and everyone's eyes - the center of attention was where she was comfortable most. "And the bracelet is nice."

"Maybe, if you're blind. It would turn my skin green. I don't buy her eighteen-karat nonsense. I'll just regift it during the annual work white elephant exchange," Ino commented offhandedly. "Did you get your present for that yet?"

"Hm, not yet," Sakura answered, noncommittal, she was not that far gone that she missed what this was: a not-so-subtle trap. Ino was picking away - peeling away - trying to get to the root of the matter: when Sakura would be back at work - all without using such words.

She would make a good interrogator, no one stands a chance when she's properly motivated. She's going easy on me.

"Forehead if you wait until the last minute you'll be miserable bumming it with the rest of the non-planners. And don't get me started on the degenerate porch pirates that follow delivery trucks. You'll never see that money again. It pays to plan ahead."

You're right.

"I'll figure something out."

One way or the other.

"Let me know when you do?" Ino asked her with more than imagined exasperation. "On the bright side, the gossips have moved on from you. Last week I almost punched an intern for telling everyone you had leprosy, the punk."

Sakura smiled despite herself at Ino's outrage on her behalf. "You showed a lot of self-control. Gai Sensei would be proud of your display of restrained youth."

"God, I haven't thought about him in years. He probably hasn't changed his haircut or his signature color since," Ino let out a giggle.

"Forest green," they said together, a little laugh to accompany their shared words.

Ino sighed on the wind-down. "I'm still getting asked about you. Everyday. People are concerned. Perhaps none more than Dr. Strange. He asked me three times yesterday. I almost-"

"Punched him?" Sakura attempted to fill in the blank with a smirk that she knew Ino could very well hear. "You may want to look into working on that. Maybe talk to a professional?" She suggested innocently.

"I almost told him to get a clue before he got lost, because you haven't," Ino sighed dramatically. "It's rude to interrupt people."

But you're not people, Ino.

"Can we grab lunch this week? I miss you." There was a pause right before a soft sigh that the receiver picked up. "And you know that's not easy for me to admit."

I know.

She smiled so it would carry in her voice despite her stomach dropping. "Not yet Ino. I'm not there. But every day it's moving in the right direction, slowly." She played with the hem of the dark shirt she wore. Bunching it up and releasing it. Over and over, adding to the collection of wrinkles. Just to give herself something to do. An outlet of sorts.

"You know what Forehead, you're starting to hurt my feelings."

"I'll let you know when I'm ready. Soon," Sakura assured her in a voice that scared her a little bit of how genuine it sounded.

"Hatake also asked about you. He wants your number."

Sakura could just about hear the judgment from three subway stops over. Kakashi made it a point to avoid the hospital when he could - to the point that he rather self-treat with gauze and a bottle of sake when a bullet grazed his arm only for Sakura to hunt him down livid after her 18-hour shift completed to patch him up properly - the fact that he went for a social visit - because he was all business at work - said all that needed to be said. Out of character and on Ino's fine-tuned radar.

"What did you say?" She asked her slowly, lowering her voice just a margin so it was still in the realm of normal - unalarming and definitely not worth listening intently to if that was not already the case.

Nothing of interest here.

"I told him I would check with you. Or that I would just give you his," Ino supplied with unconvincing levels of disinterest.

"I have it," she rubbed the gap between her brows, playing with a hair that had sprouted up there. She had saved them - her contacts - to her account. The same account she used for her laptop. The silence on the other end of the line was as accusatory as it was prolonged.

So much for it being unhealthy and gross as you "professionally" framed it.

"You have an opinion?" She asked in a deadpan, making the rhetorical nature of her inquisition painfully obvious. Her patience was always the first thing to bend.

"Sakura," Ino sighed for the umpteenth time. If she kept it up, Ino would book a spa day and blame Sakura for new frown lines. "Maybe," Ino began slowly, measuring her words and that should have set alarm bells off in Sakura's head. Because when Ino thought out what she was going to say…it was bad. Nine times out of ten. "It's not the worst thing in the world. Maybe some comfort would do you some good."

Comfort…how innocent of a notion when you put it that way.

A sanitization.

Comfort. When did Kakashi become that? Was he ever that? After years of listening to Ino berate her for being what Ino deemed a "love avoidant" and Kakashi being her enabler - or familiar zone - it was strange to have the shoe on the other foot. Even stranger that it seemed to fit fairly well.

"Maybe," Sakura uttered, thinking back to her not-so-distant decisions. If only Ino could see her now. Sakura did not know if she would be proud or horrified or both and that in and of itself was concerning. There was some commotion on the line. Someone was calling Ino's name, the voice faint barely picked up by the line.

"Oh, Forehead. A teenager took mommy dearest's expensive car for a joy ride while plastered, flipping it over on some poor granny's front lawn, screaming all kinds of things at the firefighters who cut him out of it. It's going to be one of those days. I have to go," she said with reluctance. "I'll call you tomorrow. And it's going to be a video call. You've been warned. I need to see what I'm working with here."

She laughed soundlessly, air pushing through her nose. "Bye, Ino. Good luck and talk soon." She lowered the phone onto the end table, face down.

I miss you too.

She stared at the wall a bit, blinking at the framed photograph a warm calloused hand on her navel competed for attention. It had been waiting so patiently. Its grip was more timid and cautious than it had been just hours before dawn's soft reset; unsure of where the resting place belonged if it had any to begin with. Its movements hiked up her shirt, introducing the cooler air to her skin. An introduction she did not care to be making. With a soft sigh, she sank further into the pillows, turning her head to face him, more than happy to grant it - attention - to him. Fully.

How much of that did you hear?

She searched his face for an answer to the query she could not pose.

"Hi," he smiled in greeting, voice groggy and a little rough. He kept his chin angled down so she did not get a nose-full of morning breath.

"Hi," she smiled back. She thanked her forethought - laziness - for keeping mints in her nightstand top drawer. She had managed to pop a couple in before the vibrations from Ino's second call woke him. She traced the contours of his cheeks before her fingers settled in his soft hair, nails scraping against his scalp. For a moment his eyes fluttered closed in pure bliss. She used it to her advantage. She stared shamelessly, aiming to gain her fill.

You're so beautiful.

With his sunshine yellow hair, sharp features, soft smile, golden skin, and dark ink. A striking balance between comfort and chaos. The known and the unknown. Foreign and familiar.

Veil lifts at daybreak,

Shadows of self scatter wide—

Truth grows toward light.

She was so far in her head that she was pulling words from the archives. Thoughts of just how well she could trust her own judgment rang in her ears. Things were murky at best before and now, now, they were downright opaque.

"Did you have a nice talk with Ino?" He asked playfully, catching her in the act when golden lashes parted.

Her stomach fluttered at the familiarity of it all. "I did," she moved closer, as she was the one who could lie on her side. She kissed the corner of his mouth, dissipating the last of the uncertainty. His hand could stay, roam, and continue to discover. She did not mind. A sound of contentment rumbled in his throat. Her toes curled when that very hand moved up and down the length of her back, fingertips dragging along the path of her spine without dispute or interruption all the way to where her head met her neck. Only to reverse direction, leaving her to wonder where the new end would be. "I had a good talk."

"Maybe we should talk next?" He suggested gently as his palm ran up and down her arm, from her elbow to her wrist. Repeatedly. A new route of torture.

Talk?

She froze. A split second of being immobilized by indecision. A second that if she were at work would be a second too long. She fell back into her training. Sakura reapplied her smile to the exact level it had been. She recovered before he had a chance to even question if he saw what he thought he did.

"What's there to talk about?" She tapped her finger on his Cupid's Bow, twice, some kind of significance was lost to him. "Other than what to do for breakfast?"

"Sakura," his smile dipped until it was a neutral line. His slightly furrowed brow painted a picture. He searched for the words, the ones he had been rehearsing while she spoke on the phone. And now as the time came to speak them, they hardly seemed adequate. The words that communicated that this was not a one-time deal for him. That he cared for her.

"Minato," she countered, matching his foregone playfulness - dissipating in one utterance any chance for sincerity. "So what are you ordering for breakfast for me? Maybe blueberry pancakes?" She offered up helpfully with a bright smile. "Oh! And hash browns. Can't go wrong with carbs."

Was it just grief? Was it just too many emotions?

Did he mess this up? Yet again with his inability to be patient when it came to her. Was it a mistake to kiss her that third time? The fourth? The fifth? The thirtieth? Even if it felt like anything but in the heat of the moment. Was the right of last night the wrong of today?

Was he simply just as her friend, Ino, had put it, comfort? Convenient but fleeting - no hope of longevity. Was that all she sought? Was that all she needed? Did he still have to steel his heart, fortify it? Was he wrong to open up so soon?

Was I wrong for reading into it?

"Don't look at me like that," she kissed the tip of his nose, further blurring the lines on where either of them stood. Her breath was minty but well short of refreshing. But that could have been the muddle of his head diluting the signals. "And don't tell me that I have to start off my day like I finished my last, by doing all the work," she teased with a less-than-innocent wink, falling back into a comfort zone that should have been anything but. Because if they teased, if they were playful, they could pretend it was not serious. A coward's shield - one big enough for the both of them to hide behind, if he was so inclined to join her.

"Well," he pushed away the questions and down the uncertainty, to speak with gravel in his voice. He smiled without it ever reaching his eyes. There was no light for them to catch - to reflect - to soften their hue, to glow. "I am injured," he reminded her patiently, smirking at the way her stomach moved under his palm. A spasm. He migrated it to the small of her back. She was so warm. The kind of heat he did not mind in the slightest. Soft. "And I don't remember you complaining," his voice came out muffled in her hair.

"You're really going to milk that, huh?" She asked with a raised brow, tracing the outline of a jumping koi tattoo on his right shoulder.

"There're blueberries in the freezer. And potatoes in the pantry, I'll make you breakfast." She had boxed - unopened - pancake mix in the back of one of her drawers that he had reorganized - with her blessing - out of boredom one day.

"Oh, big talk first thing in the morning-," a grunt left her lips, punctuating the incomplete jest. She should have kept her mouth shut, she realized much too soon. Breathlessly she stared up at him, wondering just how that happened. The glint in his eye had her heart racing. All she could do was gasp unabashedly to her surprise when he found her dancing pulse with his teeth. She closed her eyes, fingers tethered themselves in his hair when he sucked - easing the sting away.

xXx

Sakura stared past the stocked shelves of her clinic. The lights were bright. The room was empty beyond her. Minato had drifted off to sleep in the middle of the page with his mouth slightly open and arm slung over his forehead. She had left a note of his whereabouts in case he rose and found her nowhere. She figured sparing him some unrest was the least she could do.

That and a trek up and down the stairs.

With heavy limbs, she moved to the far wall. She sank into the first available chair. She turned her head, blinking at the wall a bit. Her eyes wandered to the framed photograph. The flat eyes of her brother were the focus of her unfocused gaze. Minutes were lost in this cycle of observance, maybe even tens of minutes. She kept her expression neutral - blank. The confidence - the brokenness - that she wore around her like armor was nowhere to be found.

She had made the first move. She had kissed him. He kissed her back, thoroughly - willingly - enough that even she could not question if he was attracted to her…if he wanted it or not. It was not out of pity - she had been more than pitiful enough. She hated crying in front of an audience; it was the sad cherry on the top of a depression sundae - she knew that. He wanted it as much as she had even if her mind was in no state to make such decisions. He had tried to cool things down before they really ignited. He had said he did not want regret for her or for himself. She did not quite know where she was on the line.

Regret, it was such a strange thing. It held no form but the weight it could gather could be crushing. Debilitating. Maddening. From the moment she laid eyes on him all those months ago a part of her wanted to know - it had grown increasingly larger as the days went on, as things continued to build (the pining, the daydreams, the escapism) - what it felt like to kiss him, to be held by him. She knew that now. Just like she knew how easily he could wrap his arms around her waist. She had details - memories - to take the place of hypotheticals. It was real now.

It really happened. That really happened.

Under the unforgiving fluorescent lights during mid-day hours, she was left to take stock of it all. The consequences of her actions. His actions. Their actions. She had made the first move. She made things complicated - even more complicated which was a feat she did not consider even possible. She picked at the skin around her thumb's nail bed with her index finger. It caught on something.

She did not have a contingency. She did not have a backup plan. She barely had a plan. She was without direction. Floundering. A kite with its string cut. She was at the mercy of the wind. Or her whims. It did not matter all that much. She had made the first move. She had opened the door quite literally last night. The one they both spilled into as a tangle of limbs and pants, just managing to be mindful enough to carefully peel off his shirt instead of ripping it off like she had done to her own clothes in her pursuit of feeling something other than despair. She had made the first move. But that was yesterday. That was last night. She was not the same person as she was yesterday.

Everything's different now.

But did it have to be? Did she want it to be? Did he want it to be?

He was still there in the morning. He had nowhere to go. She realized that. He was not like Kakashi who uttered the first excuse he could, ranging from a half-baked 'I have to take this call' to 'I promised to help my elderly neighbor rearrange her extensive mug collection'. She had quickly learned not to take it personally. It made things easier. Clean. Clear cut. Kakashi was more emotionally stunted than her. Maybe just maybe she was beginning to see Ino's point. She never had to question it before and for good reason. Kakashi never stayed.

Minato never left.

"I don't know what I'm doing," she breathed the words, admitting just how lost she was. Sakuto's smile did not change even as the shame began to fill her. Shame that she did not feel shame. It did not feel wrong. So was it? Was it really wrong? Was it terrible?

Foolish yes…terrible, I don't know.

Minato had been a child. It was about survival for him. He had to do what he had to do. She could not fault Minato for any of that. She could not judge him for that. She played with the hem of her red sweater - fidgety.

"He wanted to talk. He wants to talk." She covered her face with her hands. She pitched forward in her seat, biting back a groan. "I don't know if I'm ready." Her skin swallowed her words. Her breath was hot and smelled vaguely of the salami sandwiches they had for lunch. Spicy. Vinegary from the pickles to offset the sugar overload from the pancakes. The really good pancakes. She did not even need to drown them in syrup or top them with whipped cream.

He knows what he's doing.

"Minato doesn't like pickles," she chuckled, lowering her hands to her lap. "I know that automatically puts him at odds with you. You always had a side of hotdog with your relish. I have a secret," fingers moved to tuck her hair behind her ears. "I didn't like pickles growing up either. I just pretended to because you loved them so much and you were very adamant that you would never trust anyone who doesn't like them. But jokes on me because I got used to them." Her eyes softened in a manner Sakuto's likeness could never replicate. "I think of you every time I eat them." She tugged at her sleeves and crossed her ankles. She toyed absentmindedly with a loose yarn that rose from all her agitating. "I think he's a good person who was dealt a bad hand. I think he's…," she pulled on her fingers until her knuckles popped. "It's complicated."

Incredibly. And that was why she had stopped him before he could start. She did not know what to make of any of this. It was too overwhelming. She was unsteady and she could not look to him to stabilize her, not any more than he could hold expectations for her.

Talking was the line, I guess.

Because talking would remove all doubt and ambiguity. Talking would force reflection, introspection, and other words that end in "tion" that she had not thought of - that she was not mentally or emotionally prepared for.

"And I know this is weird, beyond weird. If you were here-here, I would be dead…of mortification. I never would have worked out the words. I would be a sputtering mess as red as my sweater." She closed her eyes. She could almost picture it. Almost. "But I have no one else I can talk to." It was her fault. Ino would love to talk to her about this. Amaya and Karin too. Heck, even Ms. Honda - the neighbor she shared a wall with - would not shy away from offering her guidance if Sakura asked - probably over a plateful of homemade Snickerdoodle cookies and coffee.

"Don't look at me like that," she huffed, avoiding eye contact all of a sudden. "The yoga pants thing wasn't even anything," she crossed her arms and turned her head trying not to think about the rather interesting advice - unsolicited - from Ino about showing off assets - tasteful of course - because she was worried that wherever Sakuto was he would somehow manage to read her mind and that would be unfortunate. "I was actually doing yoga!" She insisted - nevermind the fact that she spent twenty minutes one night (she could not sleep) to locate her pants (the ones that made her legs look like they stretched on for miles and miles) from a random storage bin in her closet like a woman possessed or in the middle of a manic episode. "Fine," she griped with agitation. "I was just trying to tease him," she continued the very one-sided defense. "To get him back for walking out of my bathroom na-" she shook her head rapidly. "Why am I telling you this?" She asked herself as much as she asked him, cheeks starting to warm. "It wasn't supposed to be anything. It was supposed to be harmless."

…Right?

"I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I should be doing," Sakura sighed, applying pressure onto her fingers to prevent them from going numb with cold. "It would be really nice if you had some more magic candy or beans or something you could give me. Ones that would let me see into the future. Or even to help me figure out what I want. Honestly big brother," she leaned back until the back of her head pressed against the wall. "I would give just about anything to remember what your voice sounded like without having to watch old home videos."

Because he was in them. Laughing and smiling. Talking loudly. Taking up space. Kizashi. She hated how her love for her brother did not completely transcend and eclipse her resentment for her father to the point that she was not left with only delight after watching Sakuto hit a home run while her mother and Sakura cheered him from the stands. Or when the two of them attempted to bake a cake for their mother's birthday while Kizashi held the camera and spoke instructions. The brown kitchen was covered in a gooey mixture of egg and flour. The real present was the cleanup they would inevitably do.

At least I have old family videos to neglect.

Some don't even have that much - a choice. Some are without a choice.

"Sorry," Sakura cleared her throat, wiping her tears away. "I'll be good. I'll be strong. I'll be okay." She rose to her feet. "I am your sister after all, Medic Haruno," she beamed, saluting his photograph.

Thank you, big brother. You always know how to cheer me up.

She kept her eyes trained on Sakuto as long as she could. Right up to the point that she turned off the lights of the clinic and clambered up the stairs slowly. With each step, she left more and more of the heaviness behind.

Maybe one day Minato can learn to tolerate pickles too.

The blond in her head was how she left him on her couch. His book was closed on the coffee table with a bookmark to hold his place. She lowered down onto her heels. She ran her finger down the book's spine before inching it closer. The orange hardback with yellowed pages.

It's well-read.

The Softness of a Spring Breeze by Takayuki Sumida, Volume One.

She read the simple cover with characters of black ink in her head, turning it over to see a black and white headshot of a middle-aged man in a black turtleneck. His salt and pepper hair swept to the side. He was smiling like he knew a secret.

Cocky.

Sakura flipped through the pages, careful to not lose his marker. Green eyes moved from right to left, top to bottom.

I didn't know that Sumida wrote sappy things, multiple volumes of them…must be his earlier work.

She turned to the inside pages - burnt orange. They were empty apart from a name scratched in graphite. The handwriting was atrocious. On par with some of her coworkers who could not be bothered to write out distinctive words, making their haste someone else's - usually a nurse's - headache and problem.

N. Namikaze.

Pink brows met in the middle.

His mom? His dad? She asked herself, staring at the slight smudge of the pencil.

What am I doing? This is his. This is his parents'.

She set the book down gently, moving it slightly as she tried to replicate exactly where she had placed it before with considerably less consideration. She had not known before. She was missing context before. She let out a soft sigh of contained relief that he did not budge. She reached across the coffee table between them, fingers plucking the purple sticky note from the surface. She folded it in half and then a half again. Her face was set in concentration as she tried to remember all the correct steps on how to make a tiny crane. A small offering of peace for her ignorance.

xXx

He did not move beyond the bare minimum motions needed to sustain life. His life. That was blinking and breathing. Occasionally there was the twitch of an appendage - maybe it was more accurate to call it a spasm. He did not move a muscle voluntarily for the past ten minutes even if he had to use the bathroom for the last seven. The reason was her temple was pressed against his shoulder. A head of pink hair stubbornly fighting the pull of sleep - she woke with a start every time she lurched forward. Until her head had slid down to his shoulder - his uninjured one thankfully - ten minutes ago.

The TV was on but the volume was not. It was so quiet that the groans of the fridge and pipes were noticeable. Loud. Not all that different than the inside of his head had been. It did not start off that way. No. The volume of innermost thoughts rose gradually in direct response to being ignored. They only became more determined.

He was following her lead. The lead - the precedent - that said any hints of a serious conversation about what was unfolding were not to be taken. Because he had tried. No less than three times today - the first being this morning in bed as it seemed like the right time - and the last had been somewhere before his nap. With one attempt in the middle when he dried the dishes she washed. Each and every time she smiled, cracked a joke, and pointed out some random piece of trivia that he feigned a disproportionate amount of interest in - the last one was about how slugs have anywhere from two to eight thousand teeth. The order was not always the same. So he decided after the third and final attempt to leave it to her: to bring up, to address, and to follow through. She was smart. He did not need to force it even if he needed to know. Hence the loud. It was so loud.

How do that many teeth even fit in their mouths? How does she even know these things? Does she do searches for "slug facts"? And why slugs? Do they have medicinal properties?

The questions he asked himself to distract from the fact that the need to relieve himself was growing in direct proportion to her sleep deepening. Her shoulders rose and fell at even intervals. Predictable. She would wake up with a stiff neck if she stayed like this. She had not brushed her teeth either. But that was less pressing. Minato sent a silent apology to his father, eyes rolling up to the ceiling in a plea for understanding. Cobalt irises lowered and moved to the left. As far left as they could. Something had to be done. The remote was on the armrest. He stretched out his arm. His fingertips made contact with hard plastic. He leaned slightly, ever so slightly. She was jostled all the same despite his efforts. He gathered the remote in his grip. Sakura rubbed her eyes.

"Isitmorning?" She mumbled, yawning into her hand, the "already?" part of her question dangled from the thin air.

"No," he said in a soft voice. He turned off the TV. "It's late. We should call it a night."

She nodded her head, eyes still not fully wide. "Okay." Her hand moved to grab his, searching blindly. "Let's go." She tried to rise to her feet only to fall back onto the couch as he did not move with a huff. "Minato?" She asked him sleepily.

"It's late," he repeated lamely, not sure how to make it more obvious without making it outright obvious. "You're tired. You didn't nap." Unlike him who had more of his wits about him, unfortunately.

Maybe we should have drank last night.

That way they could have blamed it - this uncertainty - on the vodka.

"I know," her face scrunched together as she whined.

"I have to pee," he blurted out without thinking or filtering.

"So hurry, please. Before I fall asleep again," was her annoyed answer in a nasal-sounding voice. With a groan, she rocked to her feet, tugging at his hand. This time he aided in her moment. Because he did not overthink, he followed her lead where it led; into her bedroom with the door ajar, bladder empty, and ultimately under her soft sheets next to her curled awaiting frame. Neither of them brushed their teeth. His father would understand. The scent of vanilla and warm amber wood filled his nose. He inhaled deeply. His lips pressed against her forehead. Her arm slung across his torso. There were benefits to not being so in his head. Ones that may even make the coming consequences worth it.

"I can see it," she squinted her eyes, hands on either side of her head blocking anything that was not him from her vision. "A quiet, wall-flower of a kid," she smiled, reaching for his cheek. She gave it a pinch for good measure. "Not amused by the ways of mere children."

You look too proud of yourself for that one, Sakura. Been holding in that one for a while?

"I am an only child," he noted with a small sigh. He eyed the groceries on the countertop. "Before I started school, the only people I had to interact with on a daily basis were adults." He added more ingredients to his text message draft.

Carrots. Potatoes. Leeks. Zucchini. Meat.

"Stop stalling," he said with a grin, not looking up from his phone. "It won't help."

"A real taskmaster type huh?" She asked him reproachfully, eyeing him up and down as if for the very first time.

"Of course, none other than yours truly," he punctuated with a wink.

Can't get to the top by half-assing and if you're not at the top, you will have other's will exerted on you by force.

"Had me fooled with the cool-as-a-cucumber demeanor," she extended her bottom lip past her top. "The only green thing not sitting on the countertops."

Minato made a face. "You can do better than that, Sakura. That was very refrigerator-bottom-shelf material."

"I thought it was punny," she said with an unbothered shrug. She clapped her hands together once before rubbing them. "So we're doing Amaya's delicious leftover enchiladas for dinner. Should be the last of them," she said with a forlorn sigh. "And we're doing exactly what for lunch?" She gestured to the ingredients. Her hair was held back in a bun. She was donning a yellow apron with a sunflower print because Minato was wearing her usual dark green one. At her insistence because the sunflower apron was her fancy, special occasion apron that she bought on a whim back when she was convinced she would host more dinner parties. Her friends - Ino - made it known they would rather contract tetanus than come all the way to the boonies.

"Beef stew," he answered as he tucked his phone into his pocket. "Hora will be here with the rest of the ingredients. But we can get started in the meantime." He rolled up his sleeves. "We should wash and prep the veggies." He held out green stalks tied together with bands. "This is celery," he explained with a straight face, looking her dead in the eyes.

"Cool," she deadpanned. "Does it grow on those big tall things with the brown column things?" She held out her arms as if they were branches just on the off chance he did not follow her muted genius.

"Close," his eyes twinkled with amusement. "Celery grows in the ground. Ants and slugs could easily mistake them for trees."

"You don't want slugs in your garden," she murmured offhandedly, watching him return the celery to the red plastic wash basket she did not even remember owning. "So," she plucked something off the counter to hold it between her hands. Purple. "What's this one called?" She asked innocently, fighting a grin that was adamant about disrupting the facade she put in place. "It's just so different and exotic looking."

"This," Minato's hand reached for the other end but did not stop there, curving around her wrist. "Is an eggplant," he said with a straight face. "Specifically a Fire Eggplant."

"Oh," she breathed, eyes widening with the fake marvel of newly gained enlightenment. "You mean there are different kinds?" Her smirk was a little mean. "Shapes? Sizes? Colors?"

"Sakura," he rolled his eyes. "This is a very serious domain. A kitchen is no place for fooling around."

"You're right. Safety first," she hummed, shrugging her shoulders with easy acceptance - a little too easy. She grinned at him, eyes glittering. "Leave the slicing and dicing to me. I'm good at dissecting things," her tone was serious, and her eyes focused.

He raised a blond brow. "If I didn't know what you did for a living, I would be a little unsettled."

She batted her lashes at him, slowly and with exaggeration. "Minato, warn a girl before you sweet talk her," she pushed him away playfully, still holding the eggplant.

"Handle with care," he shot her a look - not amused - before taking it from her. She would bruise it if she was not careful as she had some grip on her. "You'd make a good little butcher in a slasher movie. Unassuming and unsuspecting." His eyes flickered across her face with objectivity. "You're the perfect blend of pretty and deranged. It has all the makings for becoming a cult classic. I would watch the crap out of it," he finished decisively, shaking his head for emphasis.

"Aww," she gushed. "You think I'm pretty?" She felt her cheeks start to heat. She covered them with her hands which admittedly - if she would do such a thing - did not help matters in the slightest. The swoon was happening regardless if she welcomed it or not.

He only chuckled in response to her very selective hearing.

"So why beef stew?" She asked him, holding off on fanning herself. Her eyes darted over to the stovetops which were all off. "It sounds hard."

"The margin is more forgiving," he answered, resting his arms over her shoulders - catching her by surprise, she made the most adorable of sounds - they were the perfect height for that. "Trust carries softly. Have faith - Paths unwind steady. Step by step it clears," he dropped the big hammer. "I have faith in us, we'll survive," he said with meaning. Conviction.

"Is it?" She asked, wrinkling her nose, circling his waist loosely. "Is the margin more forgiving?" She tilted her head and peered into his eyes with seriousness. Green might just be his new favorite color - edging out blue. Jade, specifically.

Minato sighed. "Hora made a mistake. A big one," he pressed his lips together to keep from saying more. It would only make him more agitated and that was not not an emotion he wanted anywhere near their first joint cooking session.

"Everyone makes mistakes," she poked her chin to his sternum. "No one more than me," she tilted her head back even more to regard him with sparkling eyes without breaking contact with his chest. "And you always forgive me. No matter how awful I'm being."

You're not awful. Not even close.

"You were hurting," he tucked some strands of hair behind her ear for her as her hands were preoccupied. "You were just lashing out."

And I don't find him a quarter as endearing as I find you.

"Still doesn't make it any less awful what I said after you opened up about your parents," the guilt had not completely gone away just yet.

"I forgave you," he ducked down to press his lips against her forehead. She hummed happily. Her infraction was nothing compared to Sasori's.

"Maybe you can forgive him?" She asked with hopeful eyes and a sunny smile. Her hand found his heartbeat. She flattened her palm. "Because having your older brother be mad or disappointed in you is really painful, Minato."

He kissed her on the nose before tucking her under his chin. "I'll think about it," he said firmly because he felt himself already softening.

She folded her sweatpants and set them aside on the counter next to the neat pile of shorts. The laundromat was quiet again. She wondered if he called ahead and reserved it just to ensure that was the case. Or maybe it only stayed open this late when he asked them to.

Maybe we can get some takeout from that noodle place down the street.

She really was not in the mood to do dishes after all this laundry and their menu seemed expansive enough - not that Minato seemed like a picky eater or anything. Her wig itched but she did not complain. He was putting his last load in the dryer. The novelty of realizing he had non-dry-clean-only articles of clothing had worn off. In fact, his suits and shoes seemed to be the only things he was picky about.

He could have easily been a model or actor if he wanted to…if his parents hadn't….

She shook her head, brown synthetic fibers itched her neck. Her sheets were washed and folded. It had taken some creativity to manage that with three reliable hands. The opening and closing of his arms were too much to try to risk with the stitches, especially when recovery was right around the corner.

"None at all?" She spoke into the last of her unfolded laundry. "Not even one?" She found it hard - unpalatable - to believe. "Because I have so many. Too many."

I don't even know where to start. Scratch that, I know exactly where to start given the chance.

"I'm not as curious as you," he deflected, turning the dial so the quarters were counted. He changed the settings before pressing the start button.

"Try again," she said with a whinny pout, tired of hearing herself talk to a brick wall - a wall within a maze. "Asking questions shows interest."

That caused him to pause, the teasing smile slipped off his face. He had plenty of questions. Their amount nearly rivaled the level of his interest so maybe she was onto something. But it hardly seemed like the time or the place to delve deeper - further into what this was. What it could be; of what he wanted it to be. Not to mention that he was still waiting for her to open that window so he could slip through it - because he still had his dignity intact (mostly).

"I do have a question," he turned around to face her. His clothes spun behind him.

"Finally," she gave up folding a shirt, by bunching it and setting it aside.

His approach to her was smooth, flowing like water. Single-minded and without resistance. "What's the bra to underwear ratio?"

Three seconds - that was how long it took for her face to twist into a snarl. "Seriously?! That's what you go with?" She threw her shirt at him, not softened by his laughter as he moved to catch it before it landed on the dirty floor. It would be a waste of resources to do another load for just one shirt.

"What?" He asked, his smile undercutting the sincerity of the confusion that marred his features. "Is that taking an interest in the wrong thing? Because Konan has lines for-"

"Pervert," she accused loudly - voice echoing - with her face reaching concerning temperatures, cutting him off mid-sentence.

"You make it too easy," he could not help himself. Riling her up was good for his blood pressure.

"I'm not talking to you anymore," she huffed with red cheeks. "How's that for making it easy?" She asked mostly herself in a murmur, rolling her eyes and grabbing the next article of clothing she could. A lone red sock, fuzzy.

"Sakura," he broached, moving closer in a test of the waters. "I have another question."

She ignored him, back ramrod straight. The sock twisting in her hands left to face its fate.

Oh, so we're being serious now?

"Sakura."

"No." Her vow of silence did not last long just as he had suspected. He hid his smile.

"It's a good one," he toed the line with more caution than the lightness in his tone betrayed. "Not perverted. Not superficial. Full of interest."

I want to know. Really.

She half turned.

Progress.

Sakura eyed him up and down, standing perpendicular to the folding ledge, with her lips pressed together.

As close to an open invitation as I'm getting. Here goes nothing.

"Your work was really quick to give you time off," he did not know the details - he had never worked in a traditional setting so there was a lot that he did not experience first hand but even he knew it was unusual for a hospital to give her so much time off with next to no notice - something he had flagged the moment she had brought it up.

"Is there a question in there somewhere?" She asked him with hints of exasperation to cover for the guardedness of her body language. She grabbed at the shirt from him again in another attempt to settle it. Turned away. Shoulders tense.

He wrapped his arms around her. Dipping his head to plant a kiss on the top of one of those tightly held shoulders. "How?" He asked quietly, palm pressed flat against her navel.

She swayed slightly, not fully relaxing into his chest. She was mindful of her placement of herself against his person. Even when they slept. "The question is not how but why," she rested her hands over his arms. "A while back…over a year ago actually," she closed her eyes, "I kind of lost it."

"Some opener," he nuzzled the side of her neck, pushing away the brown synthetic fibers that poked at her skin enough to turn it pink, not letting the heavy air settle lest it cause her to clamp up.

She rolled her eyes. "Are you even interested?" She snipped.

"Incredibly," he smiled against her skin, eyes closed and pulse steady. "Tell me everything."

She inhaled deep and slow, a quiet acquiescence that was being coaxed into acceptance the longer they stood still unbothered by time or environment. "A patient came in," she began with her eyes closed and her voice strong despite the low volume. "Car crash. Overturned vehicle," she grasped his arms tighter. "They pulled him out just in time before it exploded." The images flashed in her mind.

"Broken bones from the impact of where the airbags deployed and the rollover, countless lacerations and contusions, second-degree burns, lungs collapsed, extensive smoke inhalation. He was basically DOA. I knew that. It wasn't looking good. He coded three times in the box - the ambulance - on the way to the hospital." Asuma the paramedic on call had told her that while the patient was being wheeled in over the clamors of everyone in the ER. She had listened as she shouted for tests to be done. Brain scans. Ultrasound of his lungs. X Rays. The works. Everything else melted away. It was just her, her team, and the patient. Nothing else existed for her.

"Breathe," he encouraged her to do just that.

She blinked open her eyes slowly. She was not standing over a cot. She was not elbows deep inside of a chest cavity. She was not covered in blood. It had already happened. It was over. There was nothing more to be done. She inhaled and exhaled. Twice before she continued.

"I knew all that. There were other patients coming in. Patients that had a chance - a damn good chance. But he was wearing a uniform. The same one Sakuto died in." It was still hard for her to believe that they had not changed it in all these years. In over a decade. She had lived with the memories of her brother longer than she had lived with him. She struggled to wrap her brain around that.

"He was wearing the Fire Army uniform. He was coming home from training. His family was waiting for him eagerly, anxiously. It's probably why he rushed back so late instead of just waiting for morning." He knew that he had people waiting for him - eager to see him. To hug him.

"I tried everything I could. I broke almost all his remaining ribs with CPR. They had to pull me off of him. They said I was screaming. I kept telling him he would be fine. That I would help him. That he wasn't going to die. Over and over. That he was going to see his family. I don't remember any of it - of that part. He had been gone for twenty minutes at that point. I could have gone for another twenty. All night if no one stopped me."

"It's okay," he held her tighter as she began to shake.

Her voice fluctuated. She licked her lips. "I didn't handle it well. I threw myself into work. Picked up extra shifts, worked long hours in the clinic, multiple ride-alongs with the paramedics, and volunteered to teach the residents beyond the ones I already had. I worked so that I could pretend that I wasn't lonely. I worked myself into the ground. I needed to be hospitalized for dehydration and exhaustion. And a procedural psych exam - hold."

Are you trying to be hospitalized again? Huh? Are you trying to kill yourself?

This is what Ino had been referring to with her pointed questions. This is what Mebuki alluded to with her comments. She pushed - punished - herself to the brink.

"He had red hair. He was just a kid barely out of high school. Yuto Uzumaki. He was an Uzumaki." she explained without having to spell it out. She cleared her throat. "I missed five weeks of work in total between the hospitalization and the mandated time off. I made the switch from the night to the morning shift. Less pressure supposedly with the morning shift. More work-life balance. I actually got to experience the sun on my skin. And go to Naruto's," she smiled at him. "I got to see you for the first time."

"And you kept coming back for the coffee?" He asked, trying to soften the impact of what she had built, dissipating it before it could settle back between her bones. It was expelled - she worked hard to expel it - so it would remain away. As long as he was here to keep it away. A barrier. He would be her barrier.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You forgot the cheese danishes."

"Right. My mistake. The real underlying reason," he smiled, eyes straining only slightly.

"I think they wanted to avoid that happening again," she admitted with bashfulness. "That's why they didn't push." The seconds moved slower than the minutes at that moment. "What are you thinking?" She murmured.

"I'm thinking of," he sighed deeply, trying to find the right words. "Heavy is the head, hands carry burdens of hearts, there's strength in struggle."

"Sumida again?" She asked him - voice softer than the falling laundry in gathered waning patience.

"Hm. That's what came to mind because when I look at you, I can't help but think how strong you are. But that's not what you asked." He smoothed hair behind her ears, expression earnest. "I think that you've been taking care of everyone and everything all by yourself for so long. And how that must be so hard."

"It is," she nodded her head absentmindedly, settling against him - fully relaxed. Relief. She melted with relief at being understood. Seen. That she was more than just her cracks - that she was whole. Still whole. "I'm tired of being strong. I'm tired of having to be strong."

He dipped his head and kissed her slowly right in the open view of the lens of the decoy cameras and wall of parking-lot-facing windows.

There was a loud crash. Sudden. Unexpected. Deafening. The paper-thin walls with no insulation between them did not pad the sound at all. There was a shout followed by a thump. Then just silence. Terrifying silence. Sakura peeled her ear from the shared divider. She knocked loudly.

"Ms. Honda?" She called out, heart in her throat. She was already working to secure her hair up and away from her face. "Ms. Honda?" She asked in a louder volume, voice remaining whole.

"Sakura!" The anguished exclamation came from the bathroom of the other apartment unit. There was no time to register the relief at hearing the woman's voice because she was speaking again, frantically. "Come quickly! My husband fell!"

She was moving. Running. She grabbed the full medical bag from the top corner of her closet. She was a blur of pink and red. She was out the door - slamming it closed - before he was even turned around from facing the bookshelf he was reorganizing alphabetically by genre, with soft music playing in his ears. No one was going to stop her.

Ms. Honda had the door open and she was standing just behind the doorway, wringing her hands and with tears in her eyes with open distraughtness. "Sakura!" She cried, her hand was over her heart.

"What happened?" Sakura asked, not stopping to take off her house slippers that had been contaminated by the dirt from outside. She moved through the unit that was a mirror of her own, with strides longer that should not have been possible for someone of her smaller stature.

"I don't know what happened," she exclaimed. "Everything was fine! Edo was in the shower," she shook her head in stunned disbelief.

"Mr. Honda fell?" Sakura asked, trying to get the woman to focus.

Ms. Honda nodded her head. "I covered him. He's decent."

Sakura grabbed a throw and a pillow from the couch, tucking both under her arm. "Was Mr. Honda moved?" Sakura asked, just able to keep the sharp edge off her words.

"No!" Ms. Honda insisted. "I remembered what you taught us." Her expression became more broken and painstaking. "There's so much blood!"

"Call an ambulance, Ms. Honda. Tell them I'm on the scene." She spared the shaking woman a glance before knocking on the partially ajar door. "Mr. Honda?" She called out. "It's Sakura, I'm coming in." She slowly pushed open the door with caution so that she did not accidentally hit him with it. She was going in practically blind. Ms. Honda had left in a fluster to do as she was curtly instructed.

Sakura placed the pillow on the floor before she sank onto her knees, thankful that she was wearing pants because the vinyl flooring was covered in fine powder-like glass dust. Mr. Honda was sprawled on the floor on his back. She opened up her bag, pulling her stethoscope around her neck. Mr. Honda - a man in his seventies with more wrinkles and liver spots than teeth or hair - moaned. He blinked his eyes, his arms were bent, fingers curled.

"Don't try to move, Mr. Honda. I need to make sure your spine is okay." She moved her hands to either side of his neck. "Blink once for yes and twice for no. Do not try to talk. Are you having difficulty breathing?" She asked calmly, her eyes flickered to the man's dark irises. They were dilated. He was terrified. He blinked once. Slowly. Then once more.

"Good," she moved down a vertebrae. One by one.

C1 to C4 look good.

She moved lower and lower. There were more feet on the other side of the door. "Don't come in! There's glass," she warned loudly, she never stopped progressing lower. "Can you move your hands for me, Mr. Honda?" She flexed her index finger. "Let's try the left hand first." She waited for him to process and execute the request, testing two things at once. His mobility and mental facilities. She held her breath.

The man's arm shook. He blinked rapidly. His breathing was in puffs. But his finger twitched and ultimately curled.

"Good," she breathed out in encouragement. "Now the right index finger, Mr. Honda. You're doing great."

"Sakura, what's going on?" Ms Honda asked, tearfully.

"Everything is fine, Ms. Honda. Can you get us some towels please?" She looked around the room, quickly - catching his finger moving. "Good, Mr. Honda." She reached for his hand. She ran her finger up and down his palm. "Blink once for yes. Twice for no. Can you feel this?"

He blinked once. She repeated the motions and questions for his right side. He blinked once again. She moved all the way up to his shoulder and asked the same question. He blinked once. The process was repeated for the other arm. It was when she had asked about his legs - through the layer of towel that preserved his modesty lying across his hips and thighs when she reached his hips - that she put her stethoscope in her ears.

"Can you breathe in for me?"

His spine is stable. No loss of sensation.

He did. She instructed him to breathe out. Everything sounded clear. She hung the scope around her neck. Sakura reached into her bag for a small thin, white light. She flickered it across his eyes. "Follow the light, Mr. Honda," she instructed him. He did after some initial hesitation. She repeated the exam. She breathed.

He's not concussed.

"Sakura."

Sakura turned her head to the door where Ms. Honda stood, distressed. Her eyes landed on Amaya's face. The woman was standing really close to Ms. Honda with alertness. "Mr. Honda is fine. I'll get him stitched up," her smile did not reach her eyes. She exchanged a look with the woman. Amaya nodded.

"Come on, Ms. Honda. Let's get you some water," Amaya started to gently turn the woman by her shoulders. "Mr. Honda is going to be just fine. Sakura has him. Remember she taught us that head wounds can bleed a lot sometimes?" Amaya spoke in a soothing cadence.

The woman nodded brokenly. "The t-tt-towels," she stammered, her face red and eyes watering.

Sakura held out her arm. "Thank you for the towels," she set them aside on top of the blanket.

Amaya and Ms. Honda shuffled away from the bathroom. Sakura turned back to the man who was blinking slowly. "Okay, Mr. Honda. I'm going to clean the gash on your head okay? Right after I take a look at your ankle. It's early but I don't think it's broken. That's very good news." Her fingers pressed against the joint tenderly, prodding and observing.

xXx

She held Ms. Honda around the shoulders, guiding her down the concrete stairs carefully. Ms. Honda gripped the metal railing. They moved slowly. The other occupants of the apartment units stood either on the sidewalk or outside their doors. They all wore looks of concern.

"Just a little more," Sakura encouraged her. Their feet were now firmly on the concrete. An ambulance - blue with yellow stripes - had its doors open. Mr. Honda had an oxygen mask on his mouth and nose. A monitor was on his index finger. He was covered in the yellow throw blanket. A jacket was pulled on top of it to cover his shoulders. He seemed so frail.

"You can sit inside with him, Ms. Honda," she said gently as they arrived at the doors. "They'll take really good care of you. I promise." She raised her head and eyes to see the medic in the back of the ambulance. "Anko," she smiled.

"Hiya Doc," she grinned, all teeth. "I didn't believe my ears when we got the call and then said you'd be here. You live in Tani?" She shook her head, chuckling. "You're full of surprises. Guess I'm out a hundred ryo." She chirped brightly, her purple eyes landed on the fearful face of the elderly woman. "You're in excellent hands, Ms. Honda."

"You really are, don't mind Anko, she was raised in a pit of snakes. Don't worry they weren't venomous," her partner chuckled heartily at his own sense of humor.

"If only," Anko winked at the poor woman, her canine teeth gleaming with hints of sinisterness.

"See Ms. Honda?" Sakura squeezed her arm in reassurance. "There's no need to worry when they're joking around like this," she informed the woman who was losing what color remained on her face before the biting wind put it back with aggression. "Mr. Honda is going to be just fine."

Shit's really hitting the fan if they stop talking. Especially Anko.

"Up, up, Mr. Honda," Asuma pulled the gurney up and Anko pulled it into the metal crevice. Asuma turned around and smiled charmingly at Ms. Honda. He held out his hand. "Ma'am?"

The woman looked at her. Sakura nodded her head. "It's okay." With a hand squarely on Ms. Honda's back, Sakura helped the woman up into the ambulance.

"We'll have the house cleaned for you by the time you get back. Don't worry about a thing!" She assured the woman, her hands cupped over her mouth so that the woman would hear her over the sounds of the monitors, paramedics, radios, and her own hearing aid.

"I'll bring over food," Amaya called out from next to Sakura's shoulder. "Just focus on getting better, Mr. Honda."

The two women waved as the door closed. Ms. Honda was framed in a small window. Terrified. The poor woman was so scared. Asuma dusted his gloved hands.

"What's the word, Haruno?" He asked her, hand moving to shorter hairs on the back of his head.

"He needs the docket of brain scans. Get an ultrasound of his ankle. I think there might be some fractures. Have them check for bleeding in his stomach too. He was unable to break his fall. Make sure they know he's on blood thinners and is in the early stages of dementia," she listed off clearly and clinically, not worried that he would miss anything even if he was not writing it down. Asuma was capable like that. "Tell them I sent him and I will email over his medical records."

"You got it." He dipped his head with an open palm. "I'll tell Ruby I saw you. It'll put a smile on her face."

"Must be getting close to time," Sakura suddenly remembered with a start, eyes wide.

"The paperwork is all filed. Any day now," he grinned, nodding his head.

"Good luck," she offered him a hollow smile, just lofty words.

I need to send them flowers. Ino can arrange something really nice. And an apology note to Kurenai for disappearing like that.

A box of sugar-free cookies too from that bakery in Yuma on account of Kuenai's gestational diabetes; they were the only ones that did not taste and feel like dry sand.

"Thanks, Haruno." Asuma slapped the back of the ambulance out of habit. He jogged to the driver-side door, yanked it open, and slipped inside. The lights lit up first as he pulled into the street. Then the siren shrieked.

Piercingly loud.

Sakura and Amaya sighed in unison.

"I'll vacuum and you mop?" Sakura asked tiredly.

"The hard part is over Sakura. Chin up," Amaya carried on nodding her head, she slung her arm around Sakura's shoulders. They caught the hazel-colored eyes of the boy in the window.

"There's something I need to tell you," Sakura murmured, rubbing her elbow. She did not look forward to weaving half-truths in with her lies. But it had been long enough that Hiro was keeping her secret. A secret that was probably stewing in his anger right now.

"Oh?" Amaya raised a brown brow. "Is this something that should wait for Hiro to fall asleep before being shared?"

Most definitely. The kid has no poker face. Or a surprise face.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "If you're gonna make a big deal about it, I'm not going to tell you." They walked leisurely toward the foot of the stairs. The door directly behind them opened. Hiro came out with a lanyard with his keys around his neck. He was wearing his red sneakers. His headphones over his ears.

"Oh," Amaya grinned, beckoning her son over. "It's gonna be good isn't it?"

"I hope so," Sakura said, trying and failing to not look at her window. The curtains were drawn tight, untouched, and unmoved.

I hope so.

xXx

She pressed her fingers to the back of her neck, groaning. Her head was hung low and her back was displeased. The baby hairs around her forehead and the back of her neck had filled with sweat and had dried. The apartment next door was cleaned. Top to bottom. No more blood. No more glass. No more shower doors. Her belly was filled with food that Aayma had made. Both mother and son were back in their apartment on the first floor. Tucked in, safe, and accounted for, their days were officially over.

I still need to send over the records.

Sakura had managed to get a hold of Mr. and Mrs. Honda's adult son. He had arrived at the hospital just ten minutes ago, with enough of Amaya's food to feed a hospital wing. Sakura had promised to collect some more tomorrow. She claimed she did not have the strength to carry it up the steps and it seemed to appease Amaya long enough until she completely forgot about the notion. Sakura's medical bag felt so heavy in her hand. She stood in front of her door. She turned the knob. It was locked. She did not bring her key. Nor her phone. Both things she had left behind. Her feet were clad in borrowed socks. Her slippers were gone. They had been coated in blood and embedded with glass. She stood on her mat, feeling the dirt and grim from weeks of being out in the elements.

My head hurts.

She gnawed on her lip. He could be sleeping. It was unlikely but it was not out of the realm of possibility. It was late. Amaya was in the mood for a couple of drinks and she would not take no for an answer not that Sakura tried all that hard. Three shots of tequila - Amaya's poison of choice that Sakura normally did not mess with as it messed a little too much with her head - later and she felt like the dead. Stiff. Cold. Drained of both hope and life.

I could go downstairs and use Amaya's spare key.

But that would require going down a flight of stairs after snagging a pair of flip-flops from the front of the Hondas' doorstep and waking up her friend. And worse, going back up those very same stairs. She pressed her forehead against the door. The knob jostled in her hand. She leaned back. The door creaked, pulling from the frame a sliver. She could only see darkness.

Just rip off the bandage.

She stepped over the threshold. She inhaled sharply. She felt herself being pulled. She crashed into something hard, warm, and encompassing. Alive. Her back pressed against the sealed door.

"Don't do that again," he ordered barely above a whisper. Low and clear.

She nodded her head, dumbly. The hair on the back of her neck and her arms stood on end. Her eyes closed when his lips crashed onto hers. She could not get out so much as a squeak of surprise. Her head was spinning in earnest now.

You may have fallen,

But my heart raced like the wind,

I fell deeper still.

Sakura clamped down on her lower lip out of necessity to keep the sound he elicited out of her contained. She would die of embarrassment if he caught on to just what his fingers were doing to her - the impact they had. He would probably tease her about it incessantly. Her eyes fluttered closed in an involuntary response.

"I," she hummed, leaning forward slightly, her legs folded under her. The coffee table was pushed out of the way. A bamboo comb glided through her hair. Caressing her scalp lovingly. "I didn't know Sumida wrote anything other than angst. You opened up a whole world to me. I don't know if I like it," she concluded with a frown.

Minato chuckled from somewhere behind her. "While it's true that his divorce is what got Sumida into writing and gaining his notoriety, he said it himself, it was the cries of his broken heart slathered on ink and paper that brought him his greatest gift."

"The Nobel Prize in Literature?"

"His second wife."

"What asap," Sakura concluded not for the first time without fanfare. She was careful in placing the book behind her, turning her body which earned her a glare without heat from Minato who had to halt his attention on her hair.

"So you only read his depressive works?"

"Not depressive," she tapped her fingers against her thigh. "Well depressive, yes." She let out a sigh. "I happened to stumble on One Heart Only Knows my Plight, My Own on an end-cap at the library one day. Just sitting there under a canned light. Dust floating above it. The cover was black. The characters were red. It was simple but striking. It captured my interest enough to pluck it from the display stand, crack the worn spine and read the first poem. It wasn't even a Haiku - what he's known for."

Sakura cleared her throat, she closed her eyes and pictured the brown page with black ink. Her lips moved slowly with purpose. She enunciated with clarity.

"Secrets conferred in the dark,

you turned away from my fall-

silence cut too deep.

Again and again, I reached for you,

but shadows swallowed my call;

now you gaze at me.

A hollow echo,

what remains of shattered trust?

Just a vacant look."

"It felt like that poem was written just for me," She admitted, opening her eyes with her head bowed toward her lap. Gentle caresses were repetitive and consistent. She had cried in the bathroom stall, holding the book in her tight-tight fists. Balling. "The next one I read felt the same. The next one too. Over and over. He helped me through the whole abandoning thing. I didn't have the words. Sumida did. I didn't know he was writing about his wife leaving him. All I knew was that he could describe what I was going through. It fit."

"Hm." Minato split her hair into three equal sections, carefully.

"So your dad? He was the romantic?"

Minato nodded his head. "Yes," he said when he realized she could not see him. He brought one hand over the other. "They both were. But my dad was a hopeless romantic. He read Sumida and wrote poems for my mom. He filled up diaries. One for each year they were together."

"That's sweet," she said with a soft smile. "Did you read them?" She asked with open curiosity.

Minato made a face. "That would make me very uncomfortable."

"Yeah," Sakura nodded her head. "I can see that."

"How was Mr. Honda?" He asked her at the end of a beat of silence.

"I didn't get to talk to him. It was Jun, his son, who called. He just wanted to make sure the medication they were giving him wouldn't cause problems. It's good that he's there. It would have been too much for Ms. Honda."

"You're worried."

Her shoulder dipped. "Yeah." She scratched her neck, turning her skin first pink and then red when she did not let up. Minato tutted her into resignation. "Jun can't stay forever. He's burning through his paid vacation days. I think he gets paid hourly based on what Ms. Honda described."

"Mr. Honda is getting better," Minato reminded her, patiently. "He'll be back home and Jun will be back at work." He secured the end of her braid with a black hair-tie.

"You're right," she agreed much more readily than he was expecting. "They'll be fine."

Minato slid her braid over her shoulders. Her hands were there immediately to inspect the work.

"Not bad," she grinned up at him. "Thank you!"

"You're welcome," he said with a chuckle. "You have really beautiful hair, Sakura. It made braiding foolproof."

"You're no fool, Namikaze," she rolled her eyes to accompany the immediate denial. The pink that dusted her cheeks gave away her inner delight. She rose to her feet. She caught herself from falling by grabbing the back couch on either side of his head. He leaned back just in time to avoid a forehead to his nose. "Foot fell asleep," she hissed with her face contorted in pain.

"You weren't down that long," Minato frowned at her, grabbing her by the waist to keep her balanced as she stood on one foot. Her other leg was being held out so she could attempt to wiggle her toes. She breathed through the cramp. "You have bad circulation."

"You sound like my mother," she clicked her tongue and shook out the appendage for any lingering pins and needles. "Your turn," she grinned down at him, both feet firmly on the rug.

"You're going to braid my hair?" Minato asked with a raised brow.

Sakura grinned, leaning forward and kissing the tip of his nose to his mild annoyance. "Just listen for once will you?" She asked him with sparkling eyes.

"Fine." He blew air at her neck - causing her to scrunch up her shoulders in a delayed effort to hide it. Minato got up only to sink down to the floor, Sakura took his spot on the couch.

She wiggled in the cushions, her feet coming to tap against his ribs on either side. "You're like a furnace."

"I'm hot," he grinned, tilting back to see the sour look on her face.

"What are you twelve?" She asked, cheeks puffing out in the effort it took to hold back a laugh.

"That would put you in a lot of trouble if that were the case."

Sakura dug her fingers into his hair with more force than necessary, relishing in the small breath of surprise. "Sorry," she said disingenuously. Minato relaxed back when they started their massage. "Where did you learn to braid? VideoTube?" She teased. "Did you have luscious, long locks during your teenage years? They were all the rage during mine." Everyone was rocking the boyband look.

"Not quite," he closed his eyes, losing himself to the ministrations of her hands. "I can't tolerate my hair being much longer than this. It gets too shaggy." It could snap combs in half. He felt his hair being lifted only for it to be dropped. A few times as she drove her point home silently.

"Shagger than this?" She asked incredulously and not-so-silently.

He nodded his head. "Believe me. So much shaggier."

"Yikes," She frowned. "You have enough for pigtails. Interested?" She asked conversationally, gathering what she could to the side of his head.

"Surprise me," he answered easily.

"Too bad I don't have tiny bands, maybe you can add them to Sasori's list for next time." Sakura's nails raked across his scalp. It was over much too soon but before he could really feel the loss, her fingertips were at his temples and moving soothingly. "Did you learn to braid to impress your future girlfriend?" She asked innocently.

"I learned from watching my aunt, Aunt Yoshi - the woman who took me in when my mother died," he admitted in a low volume, distractedly. He pictured the woman with raven hair and sharp eyes. "She braided her hair every morning and again before she tucked me and her son in for the night. When she got sick," he inhaled deeply. "She had lost so much hair, it really upset her. She would just stare in the mirror, not moving and losing track of time. So I offered to braid it for her before I had to go to school. She let me."

Her hands stopped moving. She was frozen behind him. Stunned. "Minato," she said his name with uncertainty. Her voice sounded so far away. "That's so incredibly sweet," Sakura added not without disbelief.

"It was nothing," he was quick to minimize. "It was the least I could do. She fed me, she bought, washed, and folded my clothes, she bathed me, she brushed my hair, she got me ready for school, she sat up with me when I had nightmares - I had them a lot in the beginning, I would wake up distraught still not used to my new room -, she told me stories, she looked out for me. I was just trying to show my gratitude by helping in any way I could. Uncle never would have been able to take me in if my aunt had said no. It's because of her that I had a place to call home."

Her hands moved to either side of his face. Her fingers held his cheeks. "Minato, you were a young child. Your only job was to grow. That's it. She did all those things because she wanted to, not because she felt obligated to. Trust me," she said with haughty adamance as if she would refuse to entertain any other points of the contrary. "Something tells me you were a very easy kid to love," she huffed very matter-of-fact.

He smiled against her fingers. His heart warmed. The right corner of his mouth pulled too high, the grin was teasing. "Are you only saying that because you feel bad?"

She tugged on his hair in a warning she did not mean. "Maybe."

He chuckled at the put on air around her. She was strange. She was protective just now of the little boy he was but also protective of maintaining her facade of who she claimed to be to the world. Putty in his hands that stubbornly referred to herself as stone.

You had to be. To survive. To protect yourself from crumbling from the inside out.

"It's not impressive when it should be expected. Knowing how to braid hair is a requirement," he carried on in the same light tone despite his irises being as dark as sapphire.

"A requirement?" She asked, ending up where he led.

"For being a father to a daughter," Minato punctuated with a sigh; his smile softening to something much more sincere.

Sakura found herself playing with her braid, training down the length of it with a feather-light touch. She stretched her lips apart. "A daughter? Don't men usually dream of a son to throw a ball in the backyard with?" The question was meant to be light but her tone contained too much bitterness for it to translate into reality. Because she wondered - not just once - if her father would have left if he still had a son. She wondered if things would be different - any different - if he did not have only a wife and daughter to leave behind. Would he have thought twice? Would he have looked back? Even once?

"Maybe," Minato noted noncommittally. "Putting aside that men are not a monolith for just the sake of discussion, it would be nice to have a son. I can't deny that. We wouldn't play catch, though." He found baseball much too slow - boring. He found baseball boring. "We could shoot hoops instead at the park. His sister can play too. If she wants. Yeah, a son would be good - great. The firstborn. I would want my daughter second."

So I can spoil her. So she can have a brother to look after her in the world after I'm gone.

"You have it all thought out huh?" She asked, feeling herself begin to retreat.

"Just the big things - the main things," he stared at the blank TV screen. Just able to make out the colors of their persons. His yellow hair, his blue long-sleeved shirt, his gray sweats. Her pink, orange, and black. "Every father should have a daughter. They should experience that kind of love, the love only a daughter can have for her family."

You're not the reason why he left, Sakura. It wasn't your job to make him stay. It was never your job.

"The grass isn't always greener," she added after some time, always the contrarian. Or maybe she just liked to debate him. It could just be a byproduct of having Mebuki's blood. And that was why he held his tongue. He could not call Kizashi a coward because his blood was running through Sakura's veins too. Equally. Fingers moving in lazy circles. "It sounds like you were the ideal kid - as a son - between the two of us. You were attentive, kind, patient, thoughtful, and selfless. I was just a loud brat. Spoiled rotten."

"Sakura," he tried and failed to meet the gaze of her eyes reflected a couple of yards away on a hazy screen. "If I had a daughter even remotely like you, I would never complain again. About anything."

Ever.

He saw a flash of white teeth. "You know how to complain?" The teasing was back in her voice, raising his stomach back up where it belonged. "Be careful what you wish for Minato. You might just get a screaming, opinionated, brat with boundless energy and a sassy streak."

"Whose hair I'm going to braid before school and bedtime every day," he countered happily.

"I'll pray for her," her voice was grave. She felt warm around the bottom of her feet. She furrowed her brow. "Just what do you think you're do-ing?" She asked, indignation melting into a gasp.

"Fixing your circulation," Minato said without missing a beat. Her foot was between his hands, his thumbs pressed against her arch. She nearly let out a moan.

"Minato," she sighed in resignation, closing her eyes. "You don't have to give back all the time. You know it's okay to just receive right?" She asked him with a frown that he could only hear.

"I don't mind. It's actually efficient. It gives me a chance to do my stretches for the day too." He continued to work diligently.

"Don't overdo it," she murmured half-heartedly, at a loss for anything more meaningful. "You're still injured," she reminded him.

"You grind your teeth at night," he brought up suddenly remembering.

"I know," she answered back, voice unchanging in its steadiness.

That got him to pause both mentally and physically. "You know?"

"Hm. I have a night guard," she explained, playing with his hair absentmindedly. "My dentist told me. And I resent the implication."

"I didn't imply anything," he pointed out carefully. "Why don't you use it?"

She laughed, embarrassed, she ceased parting his hair on the right for a moment. "Because it's not the sexiest thing in the world." There was drool involved - usually - when she took it off. It left a film on her teeth. It smelled like morning breath and not to mention it made her look like a chipmunk.

"You know what's really not sexy? Dentures," he answered his own question flatly, unamused at her priorities. "Take better care of your teeth."

"Minato," she pulled on some hair, tone warning for him to proceed with caution.

"Thank you, Sakura." His hands dug into her foot, he had switched them some time ago back when he talked about his hypothetical daughter.

"Hm? For what?" She asked, completely missing his tone barreling into a trap at full speed.

"I used to think that you were so nice when I first saw you. You reminded me that I can be wrong. I am quite humbled." His disgruntled exclamation of a pained "Hey!" was music to her deranged ears.

"You're welcome," she sang, beaming brightly.

"Sakura," he had the audacity to look back and up at her, hurt.

"Whose is at fault here, when I warned you time before, of boundary then." She waited with expectation.

"Sumida pre-second-marriage? He asked her, coming up well short after a search of his mental archives. He did not know his earlier work as well as she did.

"Sakura," she answered smugly, basking in the glow of catching him off guard twice with one spoken off-the-cuff Haiku. She was smart-smart and well-rounded. "Pre-kiss-attack," she warned, leaning forward, easing away the sting of roots left bare with apologetic fingers and a soothing mouth. "You're going to have to braid my hair again," she whispered the demand against him, sealing her lips against his before he could work out a retort. It was okay. She had reasons to believe he would not mind the practice at least for a little while as he waited for this daughter to become more than just hypothetical.

"Why do you carry a cigarette?" She asked him with her head on his chest. Her feet pointed toward her headboard. A compromise. He did not want to sleep on her side of the bed any more than she wanted to accidentally smack him across his injured shoulder. Sides were kept but the pillow placement changed. "You don't smoke," she stated.

"My best friend smoked. He was a genius. The smartest person I knew." His fingertips moved up and down the length of her upper arm. She moved closer. Pressing her ear and the side of her head against his chest. Legs tangled together. Arm hugging him tight across his abdomen. "He thought of everything on such a granular level that he often gave himself migraines. Chronic migraines the Clan doctor called it. The medication didn't help. If anything, it added to his anxiety. Made him jumpy. He claimed tobacco - cigarettes - were the only thing that worked. He started smoking at fourteen. Never looked back."

"Did you ever smoke with him?"

"No," he blinked slowly.

"Not even once?" She did not mean to sound so skeptical. If it was true, it spoke to his will. Iron-clad.

"At the time, I had hoped I would join the major leagues as a sprinter. It's not uncommon for the Akatuski and clans, in general, to endorse athletes or children with promise and talent. I needed my lungs so I never tried."

The room was dark. He could hear her soft breaths. He could feel the rise and fall of her chest. With his added heat in the bed, she opted to sleep in a camisole and no pants but the latter part was hardly new.

"Shikamaru," she said his name. "Aunt Yoshino's and Uncle Shikaku's son," she filled the silence with her voice just because she could. Like a pry almost. She did not want the door to slam shut. The door that was giving her more than a glimpse of his suspended world - like the inside of a snowglobe.

"Shika," he breathed through the tightness of his chest. "He was my first friend. We were born knowing each other back then - back when my parents were still alive, Uncle was very much hands-off with clan business. His father ran it. Uncle wanted to be the mayor's advisor. He had a lot of ideas on how to legitimately improve the city. For everyone. He used to say he was a Konohoan first and a Nara second."

"What happened?"

"His wife - Aunt Yoshi - died. The cancer did her in. She used to say she would be there for our big milestones: our graduations, our wedding days, the birth of our first kids if we didn't make her wait unreasonably long. She said twenty-five was a good age to be a first-time father." He blinked back the mist in his eyes, clearing his throat. "She fought as long as she could. It happened within three years of his best friend - my dad - and his best friend's wife dying. Car fire." The words cut still even after all this time. But they stung less. The pain lingered for less time. With each kiss, caress, hug, and soft utterance from her, it hurt less.

"I'm so sorry," she froze against him, hitching back her breath in her throat with a sharp whistle. "That day…at the laundry, I-"

"You didn't know." He cupped her cheek, ending her hurried explanation. "It was a long time ago, Sakura."

She turned her head to kiss his palm. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"They were out celebrating their anniversary. Dad was taking Mom to see her favorite play. A musical. He couldn't stand them. Uncle said he got through them by watching it reflect off of Mom's eyes."

"That's sweet," the corner of her lips pulled into a small smile under his hand. "They sound very much in love."

"They were. They are." He brushed her cheekbone with the pad of his thumb. His brain worked hard to try to remember their moving faces. Anything.

"What happened to Shika?" Her heel stroked up the length of his shinbone, in a reminder that she was there.

His hand around her shoulder twitched. "Drive by execution."

She froze for a second time, stiffening like a corpse.

"He was out smoking, outside the jurisdiction of the Clan. Something Shikaku always gave him crap over. He was in the wrong place and at the wrong time. A car pulled up. All six bullets connected. He was dead before he hit the sidewalk." He closed his eyes. He could see it happening. He spotted Shikamaru at the edge of the white stone wall, standing under the shade of the large mulberry tree whose branches stretched outside the courtyard. He had been grinning in triumph, waving his shirt over his head like a flag. It had been so hot that day. Much hotter than the days before. He raised his hand to call Shika's attention when in the corner of his eye, he saw the black town car.

He remembered thinking it was strange that plates started with 'CXT' none of the cars to the Clan used that prefix. It was when the window rolled down, he understood why. He saw the barrel. Glittering. He shouted at Shikamaru who was much too far away still. He broke into a sprint. Pushing his spent frame faster. Faster than it ever managed before. His hand stretched outward. The Nara turned to look at him, already moving to grind his cigarette in the gravel. The first bullet hit his shoulder, turning him. The next five hit him in the chest. Center mass. Shika fell. Like a ragdoll. His knees did not even buckle. Flat on half of his face. The car peeled away. He made eye contact - tears down his face - with the shooter. The man had smirked, winking at him behind the dark shades perched on the tip of his nose. They left him alive intentionally as a witness.

"Minato?" She cupped the side of his face. Skin warm and breath hot. "Minato," she called out to him softly.

"I'm here," he cleared his throat, blinking back the moisture in his eyes. He was not completely successful. "I was there."

"Oh God," she curled against him. Lips pressed against his cheek.

"We were nineteen and twenty," he breathed out a column of air. "I was the last familiar face he saw."

"I'm sorry." She held him tight.

"Shikaku took up the mantle the same day he buried his son," his voice raised an octave - cracking. "He was angry. He was ready to go to war. So was I."

He heard her inhale sharply.

"I gave up everything for revenge. I dropped out of school. Nothing was the same. My old life…the barrier - the one my parents wished for and Aunt Yoshino kept up - between me and the Clan was gone," he ran his fingers through her hair. His nose tickled at the warm sweet notes. The touch and scent reminded him - grounded him - that it was in the past. Painful yes, but in the past.

"It would have eaten me whole and I was ready to let it," he continued to narrate, pausing only every now and then to press a kiss to her temple or forehead. Tenderness to break up the monotony of tragedy. He had been very apathetic toward life - even if own, maybe especially his own - during that dark period.

"What saved you?" She asked, her lashes tickling the underside of his jaw.

"The Professor," he smiled, it was without mirth. "He saw my anger. He saw the road I was walking down. I was ready to mow the whole Yuki clan indiscriminately. They were all guilty in my mind. Even the children. I came close more than once to crossing the line. My gun jammed the first time I had it lined up against someone. Someone innocent. Someone terrified. Someone who tried to bargain for his life with the sixty-three ryo he had in his wallet. He spent most of it buying a hand-held gaming console for his kids. He even tried to show me pictures of them he had in there. I pulled the trigger anyway. He whimpered. My gun jammed. It saved me from having to live with the fact that I killed someone. I would have had it not been for dumb luck." He breathed, collected and calm but not without shame. Shame as he remembered that boy who thought he was a man.

"Your parents," she smiled sadly with damp eyes. "They looked out for you."

"They saved me from killing Masa Yuki." He nodded his head, closing his eyes and trying so hard to bring sharpness to their fuzzy faces. There was no reason for the gun to jam. He had cleaned it. He had loaded it. He had fired a test round. All him. It was all him. "The Professor - he shielded me, he took me in. Gave a place to go to to purge the anger from my heart."

"He let you mourn," she realized. "He let you grieve without shoving a gun in your hand."

"He told me something that I still carry. He asked me what would happen if I managed to kill the man who killed Shika. He asked me what would happen if I managed to kill all the men who were in the car that drove off. He asked me what would be different. He asked me if Shika would come back if I did all that. He got me to think about me, for the first time in weeks. He got me to realize that the only thing that would be different was I would be like them, like the men who killed Shika. I would be a killer. A stranger killer. The very thing Shika abhorred. His migraines, part of the reason he thought so much, was to find ways to do all this without killing. He never wanted to be in this life. He was jealous of me. Of the life I had. I was the son of a school teacher and dentist. He wanted a boring life. He never wanted to be the Clan heir. He didn't ask for it."

"Minato."

"He just wanted to be a normal guy," he breathed in shakily. "He just wanted to smoke in peace."

"It's okay," she held him. He buried his face into her chest. Her hands wrapped around his head. "It's okay," she said over and over. Until his breathing evened out. Until her own tears subsided, long after her camisole had dried.

"You are so over the top," she laughed, talking loudly. Her headphones in her ears were playing a light melody.

"I'm just speaking the truth," he grinned easily at her, lying across the couch lazily.

"A medical textbook really?" She cocked a judgemental brow. "That's a turn-on for you?"

"What I said was," Minato's tone was quick to admonish her as he corrected. Volume barely above the low murmur of the TV. "If you read a medical textbook to me, I would find it sexy. Want to teach me about the powerhouse of the cell?"

"Don't you mock me," she tsked playfully, cheeks pulled wide into a smile she could not fight. "I really do need to study. Just to make sure my brain doesn't rot in all this time away," she crinkled her nose at the thick book open across her lap. "This is taking me back to med school." Her face brightened. "Vodka?" She asked him with excitement laced in her eyes and tone.

"I'm alright," he furrowed his brow. "Now you make me question every doctor I've come across."

"Come across doctors often, sir?" She teased.

"None like you," he grinned back.

Her stomach fluttered. It was practically jumping up and down as she watched him rise to his feet. He stooped down, holding the back of her head, and kissed her deeply. She closed her eyes and melted into the kiss. Her ears rang so much she did not even hear her music. Her lips curled into a smile at his forehead resting against hers. He pecked them twice.

"To be continued," he promised, straightening. "After you study," he added in a stern tone.

"Dork," she said fondly watching him over her shoulder as he disappeared into the hallway bath. She scanned the page trying to remember where she had left off. She skimmed the words, refreshing her memory with clear visions of the diagrams that had grown fuzzy with time.

The toilet flushed. She could hear the sound of the tap. She lost total focus on what she had been reading. In her defense, she was very much interested in continuing where they had left off. It was a lot more interactive.

I deserve a break.

Breaks always helped her be productive - at least that was how she was choosing to remember the grueling four years of cramming thousands and thousands of dense pages. A loud knock - banging really - had her snapping her attention to the door.

Ino?

Who else could it be? It was not Wednesday and Amaya did not ask her to watch Hiro a second day this week. Ino would announce herself soon enough.

I knew it was too good to be true for her to listen.

"Konoha PD. Open up, Dr. Haruno," a voice called out over the unsteady still. "We know you're in there."

Her heart stopped in her chest.

Chapter Text

Bang. Bang. Bang.

"Dr. Haruno! This is the police."

With wooden movements, she rose from the chair; feet dragging across the plush rug until the floor turned less forgiving to the heavy hollowness. She wiped her sweaty palms on her black shorts. She sent a prayer to anything that listened - the Universe, God, Mintao's intuition - with words and structure she was not completely certain of. Sakura - Dr. Haruno - peered into the peephole with zero expectation of mercy. A pale face with dark eyes stared back at her. Right back at her as if there was no barrier at all. Her heart made a strong case for jumping out of her chest. She closed her eyes. Her hand went around her throat.

Bang.

It jolted her before she could press her fingers into her skin, biting. She jumped.

"Sakura Haruno!"

The whole door shook. The vibrations carried into her person. She twisted the deadbolt latch. She licked her lips. She moved to the lock on the knob, she turned her wrist to the right, opening the door a sliver until it caught on the brass chain. The jerk of metal on wood covered the hitching of her breath. Her green eyes landed on the symmetrical face staring at her with an annoyance not bothered with concealment.

Is this it for me?

"Dr. Haruno," he flashed a badge too quickly for it to mean anything other than an intimidation tactic. "I'm Detective Sasuke Uchiha and this is my partner Detective Deidara Domeki," he confirmed her worst suspicions before gesturing with the hand still curled around his badge to someone who was out of her line of sight. She moved her eyes as far to the right as she could. A flash of yellow had her stomach dropping to her toes. She broke out into a sweat. Head of blonde hair and a blue eye eked closed to the man who had been speaking.

Not an Uchiha. But still Akatsuki?

"Hello, Dr. Haruno," he smiled and waved at her brightly in stark contrast to his partner who was eyeing her subtly, making snap judgments and corroborating it with what was present in plain view. "Call me Deidara. No need for such formalities." His long blond hair was in a high ponytail. A long blond bang obscured his right eye. He was wearing dark straight-leg pants and a black windbreaker. "Hope we didn't wake you. Or your neighbors," his apologetic utterance was paired with a sheepish smile that took up his whole face just about.

He's trying to build rapport. Make me feel at ease.

His partner - the Uchiha - sighed in agitation. His gaze was sharp and critical, a far cry from his partner who was not shy about his ample disdain.

Are they good-cop, bad-copping me?

She furrowed her brow, pulling the seams of her cardigan closer together, trying to retain her warmth despite perspiration beading on her upper lip.

It's normal, Haruno, to feel nervous when talking to the police.

Only that was not true for her. She was desensitized to it because of her job. It was rare that a shift went by and she did not converse with a first responder - police, paramedic, firefighter - in some shape or form. Daily she saw guns on holsters. This should have been routine if she were innocent.

Do they know that too?

"We're here about the incident in the Tani Station of the subway. Were you there?" The Uchiha asked her, his upper lip stiff and his eyes narrowed in accusation.

A leading question.

She cleared her parched throat, heart pounding in her chest. "I was," she was surprised her voice did not give up its integrity. Her morals were more easily swayed it seemed.

The raven-haired man - who looked so much like the man who haunted her dreams - pressed forward. She nearly took a step back to compensate for the distance he encroached. Her hand tightened around the door knob.

Sasuke Uchiha. This is detective Sasuke Uchiha?

Tall. Imposing. Intimidating. Cold. Confident. The face of potential death never looked so enticing. Beauty cut with the set of agitated contempt.

"We have some questions we would like to ask you," he attached his badge to his belt with the ease of a repetitive gesture, tucking it behind the flap of his navy suit jacket. Expensive. Not that different from one of Minato's suits. "May we come inside?" He asked levelly, regaining some more composure. It was harder to read his impatience at a glance.

"No," she shook her head on the off-chance they misheard her.

His brows connected in the middle, a mark of his displeasure at her abysmal level of cooperation. "No?" He asked, slowly - like she was dumb. It gave her more time to assess - to break the problem down to a sum of its parts: two detectives, one with ties to the clan of the man she shot - sworn enemies of the clan the man in her home belonged to.

"If it's all the same," she glanced at Deidara whose smile was noticeably smaller in size. His hooded eye watched her closely. "I feel more comfortable answering any questions you have out here."

"Ma'am," the Uchiha began with a scoff, only to catch himself and correct his churlish tone before the damage it so carelessly did was irreversible. "Dr. Haruno," he started over. "It's an ongoing investigation," he glanced to the right at the face in the window. He stepped closer angling his back, effectively blocking their vantage of the situation.

"I understand that," Sakura said levelly, voice not shaking. "But it does not change anything for me." Every time she finished talking - the words she measured twice before cutting into sound - she made sure to close her mouth fully, lest a moment of weakness or fear do her in.

"Dr. Haruno," Deidara stepped in front of the Uchiha, smiling warmly. Suddenly she was feeling claustrophobic but her feet remained planted. "As you probably know, we still don't have anyone in custody. We're trying really hard to get those bad guys behind bars. Please cooperate with us. Help us to help you and this neighborhood. Otherwise, we can always do this back at the station."

"Then let's do this back at the station," she chose without blinking. "Should I get my wallet and keys?" She looked between the two with more confidence than she felt. "Do I have enough time to change?" Out of her shorts and into a pair of socks and something more presentable. It could be her last outfit after all and Ino would never forgive her if she died looking like this.

If you're going to kill me - finish the job - it's not going to be in front of my neighbors, outside of my door.

Because she knew her chances of survival were drastically cut when they moved her to a second location.

Deidara faltered at the display of bravado. Moxie. He looked at his partner.

"Dr. Haruno," the Uchiha was back prominently in her line of sight. The blond was pushed to the wayside just on the outskirts. "Innocent people don't have anything to hide."

She snorted. "Innocent people - all people - have rights." And she was not foolish enough to invite two detectives into her home for them to snoop around and collect evidence - Minato or no Minato. Besides, she was not convinced they were not Akatsuki here to clean up their mess. She was nowhere near ruling that out. "Come back with a warrant. Let me set an appointment at the district. Or we talk here and now. Take you your pick, detectives."

"Uchiha," Deidara addressed the man with hair as dark as a raven's wing. An unspoken conversation took place within a single shared look that was just a glance. The blond nodded his head and slinked back. His elbows pushed back on the black railing as he loitered casually- out of sight for Sakura.

"Fine, Dr. Haruno, have it your way," Sasuke said with a cold aloofness. She watched with bated breath as he pulled a notepad from this breast pocket. He flipped to a new page. A black ballpoint pen rested between his index and middle fingers. He sighed, gesturing to the door. "Can you at least move the chain?"

She hesitated. It could be a trap to get her outside or to see more of her apartment inside. The chances of them shooting her at her door were low but not zero. There were witnesses. She nodded her head after some thought. It was a small enough request that it opened more avenues for scrutiny if she denied it. She was defensive because she had something - someone - to hide but she did not want them to know that. Or at the very least, she did not want to confirm any biases they had against her before she ever even opened the door.

Sakura closed the door. She pressed her palm to the painted white slab. She ran her hands through her hair, she found her reflection in the oval mirror right over the console table. She breathed shakily before opening the door. She slipped through, closing it behind her with a soft click. She stood in front of it with her arms crossed. Her cardigan was held close by her tight arms.

"Nice to see you, Dr. Haruno," Deidara held up his gloved hand in greeting, smiling at her like he was greeting an old friend.

Afraid I can't say the same.

She scratched behind her ear, sniffling in the cold air.

Sasuke touched his pen to the blank sheet. "Now, Dr. Haruno," he paused as if gathering his thoughts but maybe it was to contain his annoyance. "You were there on the 17th, the night of the shooting?"

"Yes," she nodded her head. "I take the subway home from work."

"Where do you work?" He asked, his wrist moving across the page. The leather groaned with strain.

"Konoha Medical."

"You have a car registered to you," he frowned and looked up from his notepad. His eyes blacker than she thought possible were a void. The image of a crow came to her mind for some reason she did not get into.

"Is that a question?" She asked him with a raised brow.

He pushed air from his nose. Thin nostrils flared as the white puff disappeared in the stillness. "Do you have a car registered to you?"

"Yes. A red sedan," she answered.

"Konoha Medical is three stations and a number of blocks away. Why not drive?" He blinked at her slowly.

Five blocks. Three blocks from the Yuma Station to Med. Two blocks from Tani Station to my apartment.

"I like taking the subway."

"Even at night?" His tone implied that he did not believe her. "Tani is not the safest place to be at night." He pointed to the dark streetlamp.

"It's not as dangerous as everyone would have you believe," she did not back down from his bullying gaze. Her neck did not bend anymore under the pressure applied by such a gaze.

"Hn," he kissed his teeth. "So you were there." He tapped his notebook against his leather-wrapped palm three times. "Did you see anything?"

She closed her eyes. "I saw blood when I got off the train. There was a popping sound sometime later. People panicking. They were running away. There was more popping. It was chaotic. It happened so fast." She blinked her eyes open. The way her voice caught was not purely dramatized. She wrapped her arms around herself even tighter, fighting off a shiver. A foot rested on top of the other, never straying from the safety of the doormat.

"Did you see anything?" He repeated. She did not find anything new written in his notebook that was too far to make out.

I just told you.

She furrowed her brow. "I'm confused by the question."

Sasuke sighed. "The way you described what you saw is interesting."

"How so?" She asked before she could think about it.

"You said 'they were running away'," he paused to let it sink in. She kept her features schooled to the best of her limited ability. "They," he repeated, adding more weight. "As if they - the other victims, people just like you - were somehow different, separate from yourself."

Shit.

"I-I-," she bit down on her lip. The footing on which she stood was starting to feel less solid, there was more give. She had just made her first mistake - that she knew of.

He's good at this…almost as if he does this for a living.

And her second-hand experience from watching perps being questioned in various manners was coming up woefully short. Laughably.

"So I will ask you again, Dr. Haruno," he exhaled through his nose slowly. Audibly. "Did you see something?"

Strike one…or was not letting them in the first strike?

She first looked at Deidara who was silent but attentive before shifting her focus back to Sasuke. A name she had heard before and a face she was not expecting to see because she never considered him to be anything more than a name; text on a phone screen.

"No, Officer-"

"Detective," Sasuke corrected, tursley.

"Detective Uchiha, was it?" She blinked slowly, keeping him in her gaze for as long as she could. She even minimized her blinking. "I did not see anything beyond what I have already stated."

"An eyewitness gave a statement," he flipped through the pages of his notebook in what had to be a charade. Something about him putting on a production crossed her mind. "Ah," his eyes lazily scanned the page. "The woman with pink hair ran down the stairs to the under level, where the gunshots were being fired."

"Ballsey," Deidara pipped up with a low whistle, hardly adding anything of value to either of the two individuals; the questioner and questioned.

"Incredibly foolish," Sasuke moved the pages back to where he had his notes on her. "Pink hair is not common, Dr. Haruno. In fact, you are the only woman in ten million people that seems to fit that bill."

Really? Not even one box-dyed head of pink hair - pink adjacent - in this miserable city? You expect me to believe that?

"Is that why it took you so long?" She challenged defiantly, eyes blazing. "You were looking for a needle in a hackstack?"

"Dr. Haruno," Sasuke smiled at her; cold and condescending. "I am the one asking the questions."

"Funny," she clicked her tongue. "You used many words and yet none of them came together in the form of a question."

Do you like hearing yourself talk? Do you like toying with your food too?

Deidara's barking laughter was accompanied by the loud clapping of his hands.

"Sakura, can I call you Sakura?" Sasuke asked, his nostrils flared, teeth touching in a forced smile that held back the venom on his tongue.

Her skin crawled. "No," she pressed her teeth together in an attempt at the same thing. "Dr. Haruno is sufficient."

"What did you see, Dr. Haruno?" He hissed out the question, moving closer to her.

"Detective Uchiha," she spat his name, "I have already stated-"

"Okay," Deidara clapped a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, another resting flat against his chest. "Maybe I can give it a try. It seems we have gotten a little cyclical in our conversation." He laughed, unbothered that no one joined him.

Listen to your handler. Back off, Uchiha.

She for the life of her could not remember the last time she had taken such an instant dislike to someone. Maybe he was the first. Hot, hot emerald glared at cold obsidian. A door opening had her momentarily breaking contact. It was enough to bring her back down to earth.

"Sakura?" Ms. Honda's neatly pinned-together snow-white bun poked out of her door. "Is everything okay, dear?" She asked, staring right at Sasuke. Her hand was curled around her phone. Two-thirds of an emergency number was already dialed and ready. Sakura could see the large black digit against a white screen from where she stood.

Go back inside Ms. Honda. Don't try to help.

"Everything is fine," Sakura smiled brightly, full of reassurance. "Everything is fine, Ms. Honda. Detective Uchiha and Detective Deidara are just asking me a few questions about the subway shooting," she supplied much too much information not knowing if it helped her odds or hurt. "I'm just trying to be helpful."

Ms. Honda's eyes widened. "Sakura," she covered her mouth with her liver spot-covered hand. It shook. "You weren't there were you, dear?" She moved two steps closer. Sasuke's hand lowered. Sakura held out her arm out of pure instinct.

"Everything is fine, Ms. Honda," she said with more strain. She looked at Sasuke, eyes livid. "Right, Detective Uchiha?" She worked out through clenched teeth.

What the hell is wrong with you? Her eyes communicated - screamed - to him.

"Fine," Sasuke relaxed his hand, letting it fall past his weapon holstered at his hip.

Sakura half-turned to address the woman - never letting the door break contact with her back, fearful that Sasuke would kick it down if she gave him a chance. "Ms. Honda, I will come to check on Mr. Honda when the detectives leave okay? Please go back inside," she just managed to stop before her voice broke into even more pleas.

Ms. Honda's weary eyes made dull with the cataracts moved from face to face. "You two leave her alone. She is a very busy girl! She works so hard. Don't you have better things to do than harass good people?" She pointed a bent-with-arthritis finger, wagging it indiscriminately at who her ire landed on between the two men. "If you have time to bother her, you have time to change that lightbulb." Deidara and Sasuke followed past the tip of her finger to the street lamp.

Deidara cleared his throat. "It will be taken care of, Ma'am." He dipped his head. "You have my word. You have Deidara Domeki's word."

Ms. Honda huffed. "I will come check on you in ten minutes, dear. I'm going to call my son if you're not gone by then," she warned the cops. "He works for the government."

Sakura chuckled at the stretching of the truth. She waved at the woman only to resume glaring at the detectives the second Ms. Honda's door closed. "Are you kidding me?" She hissed. "You went for your gun on an old lady?"

"She made an aggressive move," Sasuke gave her outrage zero respect with a dismissive shoot-down of her very warranted concern.

"Out with it," she looked between the men. "Why are you here?"

And maybe cut the shit this time?

"Why didn't you come forward? Why didn't you give your statement to the police?" Sasuke abandoned all decorum and pretense of propriety as if answering her silent demand.

"You called emergency services," Deidara added with more reproach and tact. "Dr. Haruno we're just curious as to why you didn't call again when the line disconnected and why you were not at the scene."

"I was scared," she admitted with less attitude when addressing the blond detective. "There was so much adrenaline in me that I didn't notice the call dropping. I wasn't thinking straight. I just reacted. I went downstairs because I saw the blood, I thought there were more victims. I thought I could help. I went downstairs and I heard gunshots. I breathed in smoke. It made it real. I panicked. I ran away."

"You saw nothing?" Deidara was the one to press. His partner's silence was maintained by the results the blond was getting.

She nodded her head without hesitation.

"You didn't go to work the next day," Sasuke added without color or sympathy. "Or since."

Again, not a question.

She exhaled through her nose, holding back her frustration by a hair. "I heard a gun loud enough that it felt like it went off in my ear. I could have died. I'm taking a sabbatical."

"You're an ER doctor. You didn't see anything you're not used to."

This asshole.

"I have never been that close to flying bullets!" She nearly shouted at him. She held back because she remembered her neighbors and the thin-thin walls of their communal living. "I was scared. I am scared. Just because I didn't see them, doesn't mean they didn't see me. And you said it yourself. Pink hair is not common!"

"If you were as scared as you would like us to believe, why did you not go to the district? Why not call the police?"

I would've. I would probably be dead if I did.

"So I could be treated like this? Like a criminal? The shooting was almost two weeks ago and I am sick to my stomach talking about it and you think I could handle this back then?" She narrowed her eyes. "I am traumatized."

And your face, your questions, are not helping.

"Who were you talking to?"

She blinked. "What?"

"Earlier," Sasuke said calmly. "We heard your voice. Who were you talking to?"

She hoped her face did not betray her. "My mom," she pointed to the lone headphone still in her ear.

"I'll give you one more chance, Dr. Haruno," Sasuke blinked impassively, voice not changing in the slightest. She wondered for a second if he was enjoying this - watching her squirm like a fly caught in a spider web. "And it would be to your benefit to keep in mind we can check your phone records," he paused to let it register; both what he was saying and leaving implied. "Who were you talking to?"

"My mother," Sakura seethed. "Mebuki Haruno. M-e-b-u-k-i space H-a-r-u-n-o," she crossed her arms. "Why aren't you writing that down?"

"Dr. Haruno," he gestured to Deidara. She noticed for the first time that the man was holding a manilla folder in his hands. He stepped forward. He pulled out a glossy sheet of paper. Her eyes went from face to face. Two rows of six columns. In the corner, she saw the last face she wanted to see in a photo array.

She raised her eyes to Deidara. "What's this?" She asked, not allowing herself to dwell on it.

"We have reason to believe that one of the suspects involved in the shooting is here," Deidara tapped the sheet. "Can you please take a look and see if any of them are familiar?"

Suspect. She inwardly clenched at that word. The association between Minato and that word - and its annotation - felt wrong. But that was what it was right? Minato was a suspect. Minato was there. They were just doing their job.

"Don't worry, Dr. Haruno, I always get my suspect," Sasuke assured her with nearly believable levels of genuineness.

You won't bully me.

Sakura raised her eyes to hold Sasuke's with defiance, jaw set in a tight line. She tapped the picture, looking away from the flat blue eyes because it felt too much like she had just betrayed him to bring her any comfort. She handed it back to the detective not nearly fast enough. She clasped her hands in front of her.

"You saw him at the subway?" Sasuke perked up, eyes sharpening with interest and maybe traces of disbelief.

She shook her head. "No. I didn't see anything in the subway," she maintained adamantly.

"So where have you seen this man?" Deidara asked her, ignoring Sasuke's frustrated grunt.

"At Naruto's Gusty Cafe. He gets coffee there," she licked her lips. "Was he involved?" She asked, boldly.

"Can't say," Deidara answered before Sasuke could, he shook his head once. "Ongoing investigation," he explained with a small sigh, his one eye straining with wariness .

Does that mean you have something?

"From the blood at the station," Sasuke was watching her like a hawk, his voice drew her attention back to him. "It's safe to assume one of them - the suspects - was injured. You have a clinic downstairs, correct?"

"I do," she nodded, relying on the gesture to cover for the fact that she flinched. She knew it was coming but there was nothing she could do to prepare herself to actually have to face it.

"Can we see it?"

"Not without a warrant."

"Dr. Haruno, I don't think you understand the serious-"

"No, Detective Uchiha, you don't understand. My clinic, despite how you're incorrectly connecting the dots, is legitimate. It is my passion. It is my private property. It is a safe space. I worked hard to build it from the ground up. It is mine to advocate for and protect. If you think there is reason to believe that something amiss happened there, convince a judge. Get a warrant and I will unlock the doors for you myself." She tapped her foot. "And until then, I have no more answers to your questions." She looked between them, searching their closed-off faces that revealed even less than hers.

"Fair enough," Deidara, leaned back against the railing once more. He let out a long sigh. "We'll be back with that warrant, Dr. Haruno. Thank you for humoring us."

Sasuke was smirking to which she eyed him warily. He leaned forward until his lips were level with her ear. "Do you have company over?"

She blinked, stiffening at the question. She dared not breathe too loudly, much less move.

"Have a good night, Dr. Haruno. Stay safe." He reinstated the distance between them. His eyes shone with something unreliable. She nearly shuddered. It felt like a threat. His expression was smug. More smug than it had been. He wheeled on his heel and bounded down the stairs, taking two at a time.

"And we'll get that light fixed. You tell Ms. Honda that." Deidara smiled at her sunnily. "Hey, asshole, wait up!" He ran after the Uchiha.

She stood there, breathing in cold air, trying to cool her too-hot face even as snot practically dribbled down her nose. Her hand trembled as she groped around behind her for the door. She watched the dark car peel off. She all but fell back as the support of the door vanished momentarily. She swallowed thickly. Legs shaking. Throat dry. Blinking rapidly. She pressed the back of her head against the rigid barrier. She blinked at the inside of her apartment. A red mark on the side of her neck displayed on the creamy skin of her reflection. Just centimeters from where Sasuke's mouth had been when he taunted her with the question he already knew the answer to.

Just how many more was that the case for?

He was there. Silent. Still. Steady. His eyes were warm and welcoming, asking her to take solace in them. His face was solemn. Her legs folded. He caught her before she fell to the floor. He held her against him, holding her together.

"It's going to be okay," his fingers promised with each motion through her hair. "You were convincing."

Sakura closed her eyes, shutting them just as she shut down.

"Sakura," he said her name with concern. He placed the sage plate with a turkey sandwich with cheese on white bread - with the edges cut off just like she liked even when it meant he had a pile of crusts waiting to be eaten by him - in front of her. "You need to eat." She needed a lot more than that but it was a start. Maybe it would be a catalyst for betterment. After eating she could try to nap, if she was feeling up for it, she could shower. It would go a long way in making her feel more human - a sense of normalcy. Or the illusion thereof.

"He's an Uchiha," she murmured, pulling at the drawstrings of his dark hoodie as tight as she could. It came nowhere close to cutting off and isolating her problems. Her knees were pushed up against her chest. Her face curled into the upholstered chair; the textured fabric leaving lines and grooves over her cheeks. An imprint.

"He's the black sheep of the family," he explained patiently, not for the first time. In the recess of his mind, he allowed himself to wonder if his voice could still reach her. He had no way to measure just how far in her head she was. He sat on the coffee table, relocating the plate under the brass table lamp. "The clan head's youngest son. He's legitimate. One of the only ones in the force. He's trying to make a name for himself."

"He's from the eleventh district." Each word seemed to cost an exceeding amount, draining the life right out of her. "He doesn't even have jurisdiction here," saying what they both knew to be true. So much for legitimacy. Corruption was corruption. It did not matter if one carried a badge and a permit for the weapon he wielded.

He must have pulled in a favor to get the case.

"Sakura," he pressed his palm to her bent knee. "It's going to be okay." He did not care to keep track of how many times he spelled out the words for her. He would say them as many times as needed until they became true - until she saw them become more than temporary vibrations.

"I shot his cousin," she confessed what she believed to be the truth - a lie he fed her.

"Maybe they're not close?" He offered up lamely and without conviction. "He could really hate him."

She did not react. She did not smile. Just like he knew she would not. She blinked slowly, fingers twisting and twisting. They would turn purple if she kept this up.

"Sakura, it's not the end of the world," he maintained the line in the sand fighting the sea, shoreline, tides, wind, moon, and just about everything else.

"He had a picture of you," she lifted her head just long enough to lock eyes with him. She did not believe him. At all. She just did not feel the need to waste what little energy she had putting it into words that would bring about nothing positive.

"Sakura," Minato leaned closer, encroaching into her space even more than he already was. What he had was not enough. He needed to breathe the air she expelled. He needed her to see what he saw. "He has nothing."

"He has your DNA," she shot back with adamance, her eyes piercing in their gaze. Accurate. Unforgiving. Effective. Like the tip of an arrow, she cut into him. Too many cuts to count. "Samples," she stressed the significance of it being considerately more than nothing.

"Samples get damaged or lost all the time," he continued to meet her gaze without a shield to defend himself. "Or the chain of custody can't be corroborated."

Her pink brow furrowed. A thin line against her strong forehead. Her lips were pressed together. She blinked - equal parts intrigued and perturbed, and much too exhausted to lean one way over the other.

"If I walked out of here today into the District Eleven Police Station, Sasuke Uchiha would not have enough to arrest me," he said with conviction rooted in every fiber of his being. And that was precisely why he was so angry. Anger that beyond a streak of navy in his cobalt eyes, he kept to himself. Locked away where it could not get to her.

"What does that mean, Minato?" She croaked out her question, it was practically a gasp. Her hand - shaky and timid - cupped the side of his face. He leaned in. Covering her hand with his own. Holding it to him. His thumb traced circles on her kneecap.

"It means, you don't have to worry about me. Or this. I will handle it." He smiled at her, reassuring and placating. "He won't get a warrant for your apartment." He would not violate its sanctity, no matter how badly Sasuke wanted it.

"You don't know that," she breathed the words with shame. Her eyes looked and stayed away before she was even halfway done. Her shoulders moved closer together, forcing her collarbones to protrude from her skin. The taunt skin drew back, forming shallow pools that held the regret that dripped from her.

He debated it quickly in his head - in between blinks - how much of his theory to reveal to her. The line was thin. Drawn by a twig in the sand on a windy day; the line between information that would put her in a marginal state of ease, and information that would weigh her down even more. He brought her hand to his lips. He kissed her knuckles. Slowly. Deliberately. His eyes never left hers and they held her with such intensity that the thought of looking - glancing - away could never occur to her.

"This is a good thing," he breathed conviction into an idol made of clay. One that would grow and shield her. Protect her when he could not. She would be safe. At all times. "As long as Sasuke Uchiha - the fallen son - is interested in you, you're under his halo. His protection. No one in the Uchiha Clan will dare approach you."

Her green eyes were alert, not cloudy. She was blinking not too quickly or too slowly. She was understanding. She was listening. It was promising. So he kept going, trying to string together his thoughts, interrupted by recollections of another's.

"Silent, contentious stares collide, mirrors of a fractured bond - familiar shadows," he recited soft and clear. Low but not without impact. "Resentment whispers, in every stubborn heartbeat. History repeats." He waited for her to pick up where he left off but she only stared. Lips parted in fear she did not legitimize with voice. "Father's echo thunderous - son fights with words that spread fire, yet he threads the same. Grudges worn like scars, love, and hate intertwine; a cycle unbroken."

A head cleared of clutter. The backdrop was set by someone with much better words than he had. Context. He gave her context into the no love lost between father and son. A son who was most like the father he resented more than anyone else in the world and for the son, there was nothing more maddening.

"Uchiha - Sasuke - is in the police force because Fugkaku - his father - and his older brother, let him be. And no amount of brooding changes that fact." He held her face in both hands, steadying her. Anchoring her to him. So that she could borrow from and steep in his calm. "You're safe." No one would touch a hair on her head. Not now. Not ever. Not as long as he was alive.

"M-Minato," she shook her head so slightly that had his hands not been there, he never would have noticed. It was practically an involuntary spasm. "I don't understand." This was his world and she was not used to either the gravity or the quality of the air. She was struggling. And he kept adding more and more complications and he revealed yet another reality on what made it spin in a reverse orbit than what she thought she knew.

"All you need to understand now is this: trust me. Know you can trust me. I will take care of you. Nothing will happen to you."

I will not let it.

Sasuke was smart but he had a glaring flaw. In his pursuit to right the wrongs of his family - of generations before him - he had tunnel vision. He could only focus on one thing at a time. And if a part of the picture was painted and placed before him, he would not think twice about whether or not there was more to it.

"This is the out, Sakura. This is how it ends." He stroked her cheekbones with his thumbs. "This is how you get your life back." The life she had worked so hard for. The one she had struggled for. Worry warmed his eyes to a homogenous hue. He was reaching for the plate. He held it over his knees. "Please try to eat something."

She blinked twice. Slowly. He let out an audible sigh of relief. He brought one half of the sandwich cut vertically to her lips. She opened her mouth and took a small bite, hardly a nibble. It brought a smile to his face all the same.

Silent hours creep slow,

Days like shadows fade away-

Time slips through fingers.

She parted the plastic blinds that were manufactured to resemble a caramel wood. The street was flooded with light from the lamppost that was far brighter than any of its brethren. An unmarked police car with two uniforms inside sat on the other side of the street parked along the curb. They were not even trying to be subtle. They either lacked the skill to hide in plain sight or had an abundance of confidence in the ability to slap silver handcuffs on her dainty wrists. She was not sure what mind game they were playing, if any. The floorboards creaked purely for her benefit. He knew how to move soundlessly in her space better than she did. The random unaccounted-for bruises she found in the shower were a testament to that fact.

"Are you sure we shouldn't give the clinic another cleaning?"

Or the apartment? Shouldn't we be doing something? Anything other than just waiting.

Waiting for the warrant to come in. Waiting for the Uchiha to kick in her door. Waiting for boots to stomp into her home, violating all rosy notions she had about privacy and sanctuary. What would her neighbors think? Would years of planning and literal blood, sweat, and tears be undone in mere moments?

Was it really that easy to lose just about everything?

"The clinic is clean," he restated his belief and stance. The evasive and abrasive cloud of bleach had just dissipated to the point it was no longer pungent enough to coax tears from their eyes, sniffles from their nose, and burning in the back of their throats. And now, with the state of things, it would be harder to transfer the empty cleaning supplies and rags to Sasori so that they could be disposed of properly.

Even if they found something. A hair. A drop of blood. A fleck of skin, he was confident it would not be the end of the world - her world. He had not simply been talking nonsense about samples being mishandled. There were ways around that. And besides, he had his own suspicions about the motivation of detective Sasuke Uchiha.

"I've turned into my mother," she pressed the tip of her tongue to the wall of her cheek. There was a theory that such a thing was inevitable. Children grew to become like their parents - the people that raised them. Adopting and accepting their flaws as their own. She just thought she would be on the other side of fifty when it happened. Perhaps she was simply too generous or completely delusional.

"Maybe it's time to go visit her," Minato offered up the suggestion gently. Encouragingly. As if it was her own idea. He was careful to stay away from the influence of the yellow light that cut the darkness between the slants of the horizontal blinds. Perfectly masked in the void. "It will be good for you to do things in public. Get back into a routine. It shows you're not worried."

But she was. Sakura rubbed her arm with her hand. Goosebumps adorned her skin even under a layer of dark fleece and ambient air temperature that was so warm that Minato elected to don a thin t-shirt. This was not routine for her. And she was getting very tired of alluding to that fact. Lying to authorities - lying on this level - was beyond her.

"What will you do?" She asked, her eyes watching while her ears imagined the conversation going on in the cop car across the street. "When I'm away."

"Errands," he called out from behind her. Out of reach but never out of influence. "Chasing a lead."

She nodded her head as if that meant anything concrete to her. Maybe it did. Or maybe it would. She was learning so much. Day by day.

Maybe the less I know the better. My testimony against him would be less damning that way.

Worst case scenario - because her mind did go there despite his reassurances out of habit - would be testifying in the court of law against the man who indirectly saved her life. She could not picture it - maybe she could, teary eyed and hysterical as she apologized profusely to him all the while losing the respect of her peers, neighbors, and colleagues; maybe even her mother - sitting on a cold, hard, chair in the witness stand, forced to answer question after question the district attorney hurled at her in exchange for charges of co-conspiracy being dropped. Maybe she would get off with something as small as a hefty fine and no jail time as she did not have any priors.

Would she take the deal? What did it say about her either way?

Sakura cleared her throat. "I'm glad," her voice was raw and stretched thin with her vulnerability. She lowered her fingers to her side. The black stripes broken by warm, yellow light became uniform once again across her face, neck, and torso. "I'm glad you're here." She inhaled deeply. The only thing worse than this would be doing this all alone. Without his guidance. She did not read into his silence. His warm hand that had slipped into her own was more than enough assurance that she needed at that moment. She closed the blinds. Pulling the string through her fingers. Just managing to avoid cutting open her skin.

The loud electric - buzzing click - followed by the bolt being undone, and the door closing with an unforgiving thud, felt like a lifetime ago just as soon as a waterfall of vibrant red registered by his eyes was translated with his brain.

She moved to perceive his presence with a turn of her head, peering over her shoulder. She did not, however, move away from the edge of the pool table. Her arms were bent and her violet eyes glittered with recognition that he was not a threat because he was no longer an unknown.

"Long time, 'ttebane," her full pink lips pulled into a smile that was neither unkind nor warm.

"It has been," he suddenly found his voice just in time to pass along the sentiment. "It's good to see you, Kush."

She sighed perhaps even long-sufferingly. Her eye - the one he could see - narrowed in annoyance. "I wish I could say the same thing, Flash," she spat the identifier she hated so much. "From what I heard you got yourself in quite the fix, dattebane!" Her expression was stern. Maybe. He only had the left side of her face to work with. "And here you are showing your face like nothing happened, dattebane!"

"It's just a regular Friday for me." He flashed her a smile. Confident enough to be mistaken for cocky by most. But she was not most.

She opened her frowning mouth with harshness ready to weave into her words. A soft coo had her turning away from him. His brow furrowed. Something poked over her shoulder. She bobbed up and down. She half turned revealing the source of the sound - something that had not even been a blip on his radar.

His heart skipped a beat. His face was slack but his eyes - his eyes - held his emotion. He blinked. He blinked again. His thoughts had come to a screeching halt. He could almost smell the burnt rubber from the sudden breaks. They had been going full speed after all just seconds prior.

Yellow…blue….

A small face with a droll-covered fist crushed up against its - his - mouth, stared up at him. Hair as yellow as the yellow crayon used to draw a half circle in the top corners of a sheet of paper: the sun. His hair was yellow. And his eyes were blue. Staring right at him. It into the depths of his soul. Shamelessly open. Maybe even in accusation.

Is that….

He dared not finish the thought as if even thinking it would somehow manifest it to be reality - the truth. That he was a sack of shit - a deadbeat. One that never deserved to be forgiven.

The boy cooed loudly. Pulling his fist from his mouth. Shaking both of them. A line of clear saliva connected his pink bottom lip to his leftmost knuckle. An orange bib with a green frog on it was donned over his blue shirt and brown pants. He was young. Near or around one. The baby smiled, revealing one lone white tooth - barely the width of a grain of rice - among his pink, fleshy gums.

"Da!" He shrieked and Minato's knees somehow managed to catch him at the last minute, preventing a rough fall on his face. His cobalt-colored eyes darted to the nearest door in front of him.

The air was suddenly too hostile to breathe. The steady, stray ground he once stood on top of was tremoring under him. Even if the rational part of his brain - the area was growing smaller and smaller with each excruciating breath - screamed at him to not panic; to not jump to conclusions. Even if it was much too late. Because he stared at the complication - the baby - with a slack jaw and his stomach in his toes. His world had just stopped spinning, finally catching up with his muddled head.

Kushina watched him with flat eyes, wide nostrils, and an air of unimpression. "He's not yours," she said the words that liberated him from his thoughts of new responsibilities. "He calls everything 'Da'. It's the only word he knows," she explained with more than a trace of bitterness. Minato blinked, not allowing himself to relax just yet. She could still be pulling his leg. Kushina was a prankster at heart and more than a handful had been tone-deaf from the stories he heard both from her and various other sources. And if he skimped out on roughly two years of any kind of support - he was guessing - he deserved it; he deserved no mercy. Monumentally. "He's big for his age - in the 99th percentile," she added with pride that quickly faded when her eyes moved from the boy's face to his. "So you can stop doing the mental math. You'll give yourself an aneurysm, 'ttebane."

Thank you.

He exhaled slowly - inwardly vowing to donate to the nearest shrine or charity he encountered - audibly. Relief. With palpable relief. The sour look she shot him was warranted, he believed. It was now, without a clouded mind that Minato could register the differences. The blue of the child's eyes was lighter than his own. They were sky-blue, not cobalt, and oh-so big like his mother's. His face was round - cheeks chubby and skin fair. And his hair though the same shade did not seem to have the predisposition to clump together in shaggy spikes. It was close to his head. Aside from being in the same color family, the boy looked nothing like him.

"You have a type," he chuckled, unable to help himself, practically giddy. The need - the call - to flee was becoming fainter and fainter.

"You're as pale as a sheet," Kushina huffed. She gathered the end of the soft bib. She dabbed her son's - just hers and not his - mouth. "You should sit down before you crack your skull open."

"I'm fine." He was great. He had just shed about twenty-five pounds of weight that had sat squarely on his chest. "Cute kid," he said because that was what people said around babies.

"Thanks," Kushina uttered as disingenuously as him but she made no effort to hide the fact. Kushina held up her left hand, she wiggled her fingers to draw in his eye to the shiny, gleaming stone on her third finger. "Remember my no-good, annoying as H-E-double-L ex?" She asked him dryly.

Minato nodded his head, regretting his decision to joke too soon because if she was leading him where he thought she was, he wanted no part in being associated with her ex whom she complained about nearly as often as she breathed.

"I married him," she grinned from ear to ear, she nuzzled her nose into the side of her son's cheek soliciting deep-belly-filled laughter. And a spit bubble. "Say hi to Uncle Minato, Menma." She bounced the boy on her hip, holding his damp fist in her hands without a lick of disgust.

"Congratulations," Minato shuffled on his feet. "For both things," he added to clear the ambiguity, awkwardly.

"Who knew that Uncle Minato not wanting anything serious would be the best thing that happened to Mama?" She cooed the boy, speaking in a higher-pitched tone that he was completely enthralled with. Wide sky-blue eyes stared at her, enamored. "Who would have thought?" She asked her son with a big smile. "Who would have thought, Menma? Not your mama. Not your mama, that's who."

"Da!" Menma flailed his arms, shrieking in delight.

"No, Menma," Kushina corrected him. "Mama," she said slowly with intense focus on her son. "I'm Mama. You know the one that changes half of your diapers, does all your feedings, buys you all your clothes and stuffies. Not Da. Mama."

Menma pinched his face together in concentration. He opened his mouth, "Da!" He sang with pride.

"Why me, dattebane?" Kushina hung her head for all but a moment, she nuzzled her nose into his cheek once again soliciting a sting of deep-belly rumbling giggles.

Minato smiled at the sight of them. Just the two of them in their own little world, completely indifferent to him. "He has your face."

And your spirit.

Kushina beamed at him, she patted the baby's back. "And thank God for that."

You can say that again.

Minato kept this agreement to himself. It was the smart thing, as heavy footsteps clambered down the stairs. Boots hitting concrete - echoed - bounced off the close-together walls. The rasp of a voice - whine - soon filled the air.

"Okay Babe, I think I got the right stuffie this time. Why in the name of all things good on God's green earth does he have so many damn frog to-" The blond man frowned when his lone blue eye landed on Minato's face. He stood there still as a statue in a dark black jacket lined with pockets over a navy v-neck form-fitting t-shirt. He was holding a stuffed animal in his hand. Yellow with an orange belly.

That's a toad, not a frog.

"Oh, it's you," Menma's actual Da said in a deadpan.

"Da!" Menma screeched, arms extended toward the man, wiggling in his mother's grip who adjusted quickly to keep the boy from tumbling out of her arms. His son more than made up for his father's lackluster greeting.

"Hey, little man," the blond's softening face impacted his voice. He reached for the toddler - Minato knew next to nothing about babies and the various labels for their development stages - taking him into his arms. Menma promptly shoved as much of the toad's head in his mouth as he could. His pupils dilated. He kicked his chubby legs. Content.

"He has so many of them," Kushina took the diaper bag slung on the man's shoulder and brought it to rest on the pool table. Her tan wool wrap-around coat had a sizable drool stain on it. She shook her head, straightening her hair over her back. "Is because Jiraiya and Tsunade got him that mobile for his crib that they helped put together. He's been obsessed with them since even before he came out, you know."

The blond made a face somewhere between hurt and annoyed. Defensive. "How could I know? You weren't even talking to me then," he grumbled, moving Menma to the side where his blond bang obscured his scar and missing eye. A firework accident from when he was a teenager. A very dumb teenager.

"Well you did knock me up, dattebane," Kushina huffed with her arms crossed over her chest. "And you ran away when I told you! After asking if I was sure he was even yours." The accusation had real heat behind it.

"It came out of habit! I ask follow-up questions for a living, Babe." He insisted. "And I had a call!" He defended himself, with real indignation. "Tell her how things are, Namikaze."

Minato found himself in the middle of their mess. Two and a half pairs of eyes stared at him, expectantly. Minato glanced toward the direction the man had come, wondering when Jiraiya would grace them all with his presence and hopefully defuse this bomb that was ready to burst in his face.

"Well?" Kushina demanded, foot tapping. "You going to tell him he's a coward or what?"

Maybe. But he himself was thrown in those very shoes not too long ago and his first instinct had been to run. Far away and fast. Really, really fast. Cowardly? Yes. Human? Absolutely. He would have done the right thing by the boy - he liked to believe - like Deidara did so was it really fair to fault him - harbor resentment - for being frozen in place by the weight of an expanding world?

Just rip the bandaid off.

"Domeki has an important job," he said in a monotone. Allegedly. He was not sure after hearing the man at work through the slab of Sakura's door, watching with a fish-eye view from the peephole that she did not cover with the back of her head. There were advantages to being short.

"Thank you," Deidara let out a validated sigh.

"You men are the same," she griped, "figures that you would cover for him," her tone dripped with disgust. "You're not going to be like them, Menma. Over my dead body," she told the boy with a stern expression. Menma tilted his head to the side, confused. He blinked slowly.

"Honestly, Babe. I groveled for thirteen whole months! I sent over enough flowers to put Yamanaka Flower Shop out of business. You letting me in the room was a split-second decision." Because she needed to break someone's hand from squeezing too hard while she pushed, and why not his? Since it was his fault. Never mind the fact that she - the sad, angry, unstable mess after her situationship with Minato ended - had approached Deidara the first, second, and every subsequent time after. "How much more? How much longer before you forgive me?" He asked his wife.

How much longer do they plan to keep at it?

Because he was close to apologizing for showing up when he had. His cobalt eyes were trained on the stairwell, willing something - anything - to enter through it.

"I haven't decided yet," Kushina deadpanned without any consideration for Deidara's plight.

The blond - Minato - cleared his throat to remind them that he was very much still there and he was gathering much too much information that was next to useless to him.

"Why are you here?" Minato addressed the bickering - formally bickering, he hoped - couple.

"We're here to see Tsunade," Kushina answered. "She's the only one that Menma doesn't get all fussy for." The exasperation was clear in her voice.

Is it for all the drool?

He kept his upper lip stiff, he had to, otherwise, it would have curled in disgust. The yellow synthetic fur on the toy was damp and clumpy as the baby gnawed on it. He dare not ask his question out loud. Kushina would kill him with zero remorse or hesitation. And Deidara would hide his body where no one would find it. They would get it together enough to orchestrate that, Minato was certain.

"My boy takes after his old man," Deidara was brimming with fatherly pride. His eyes were on his wife - a particular part of her. Her crossed arms pushed against her bust practically put them on display much to the man's pleasure.

"You pervert!" Kushina shook her fist at him. Had her husband not been holding her son, Minato would have witnessed a different murder. One that he would be forced to dispose of the remains of because otherwise, she would talk his ear to death trying to convince him. "That's the last time you go out for dinner and drinks with Jiraiya!" She promised him darkly. "Peepers! Are you for real?!"

They're doing this on purpose.

"For the last time, Babe, it was a very important discussion on a new business ven-"

"What's Uchiha playing at?" Minato asked, cutting Deidara off before he signed his own death warrant with his own tongue. "What was the other day about?"

"Babe," Deidara murmured, staring straight ahead at the lieutenant. Kushina gathered Menma into her arms. She walked back to the pool table, to rest him on top of it. She moved a ball back and forth. Menma gasped in excitement. Deidara crossed his arms and frowned. "He thinks that if he turns up the heat, he can flip her."

Minato's stomach clenched at his suspicions being confirmed. "He wants to use her as an informant." It was not a question but Deidara nodded his head anyway. "He wants to pressure her into giving me up."

"Bingo," Deidara shot him with a finger gun, punctuating with a click of his tongue. "He has a very vivid imagination. Wild actually. Talks of her wearing a wire. Infiltrating in the Nara Clan. Being his little pink-haired mole."

They would kill her. If they found out. Without hesitation.

Minato's teeth pressed together of their own volition at the thought of Sakura anywhere near the compound.

"How much does she know," Deidara's eye was critical on his face. "How much did you tell her?"

"Nothing," he answered. "She knows nothing." It was true. Beyond a name or two, the vague hierarchy of the Clan, and an even vaguer idea of his job responsibilities she knew nothing of value to Sasuke.

"He disagrees. He's like a starving dog with the scent of a bone," Deidara kissed his teeth. "He has a couple of unis staking her house."

"I noticed," his lips barely moved.

Deidara raised his brow. "They don't know their hand from their ass. You're welcome by the way," he shook his head with resignation. "How do you know?" He scoffed when Minato did not answer. "You're staying with her. Wow." His judgment hung in the air.

"She shot an Uchiha," Minato did not bother to lower his voice. Kushina would have just gotten it out of Deidara later. He was saving the man some time; time he could use elsewhere, perhaps in even aiding Minato. "Because of me." It was his mess. Not Sakura's.

"Ah, shit!" Deidara whooped as loud as it was unexpected.

"Language!" Kushina scolded him even louder. Menma let out a sharp screech, joining in the chorus with his high-pitch range.

"Sorry, Babe," Deidara said automatically without even pausing to think about it. "That was her?" His eye was wide with something akin to admiration. "She got him right in the hand. Masanori, a real rough twenty-three," Deidara supplied. "That's the Uchiha she shot."

"I've never heard of him," Minato shook his head once, clearing it of the faces he went through trying to place the name.

"A lowly soldier. Sells pills and powder on the side to subsidize his dues - not very good at it from the looks of things. A little brother. Saw an opportunity. He was out to make a name for himself. To stand on his own two feet," Deidara pinched the bridge of his nose, for the first time resembling very much the part of a sleep-deprived father of a young child. "Sound familiar?"

A story as old as time.

Minato scoffed in response.

"Fugaku and Shisui are pissed. I heard it straight from the weasel's mouth." Deidara seemed to age right in front of him. "They're not too happy that Sasuke has latched on. They want this gone. They want this behind them. It's not good for morale or business." Casinos. Gambling. High-end booze. Even more high-end prostitutes. Entertainment. Clubs. Massage parlors. That was where the Uchiha made most of their money. Money that was now threatened by the whisper of a war waiting to break out. "Their clientele don't want their brains to be the thing that gets blown if you catch my drift." It was impossible not to. He was not as subtle as he believed himself to be.

"You're disgusting," Kushina threw her eyes heavenward. "Don't be like Dada, Menma," she told her son with grave seriousness. The boy was in the process of trying to shove the orange billiard ball in his mouth in its entirety. And upside-down number five faced Minato.

That cannot be sanitary.

He made a note to never play pool down here again. Not before he could bleach everything first and foremost.

"Occupational hazard, my beautiful wife." Deidara gestured to the smoke on Minato's ear. "Got another?"

"No," Minato lied, the box burning a hole in his inner pocket.

"You said you quit!" Kushina accused from across the room, fuming.

"It was a test, Babe," Deidara sighed. The thrill he got from lighting things on fire had not fully worked out of his system even if he was a far more upstanding adult than his rough teenage years implied. "You left your DNA everywhere," he said with annoyance like he was personally tasked with cleaning it up.

"I'll try to be more careful the next time," Minato promised dryly.

"You're one lucky bastard. You got shot out in the open," Deidara brought two fingers level with Minato's chest. He cocked his handgun up, grinning. "And not a single witness could point you out of a photo lineup. You must have a forgettable face," he clicked his tongue, remorseful to be the bearer of bad news. "Or you got to them first?" He asked with half interest.

"Minato's not like that," Kushina chimed in before Minato could shake his head. Sound really did travel before light. Before he could thank her for defending him - or his face not that it mattered all that much - she was beating him to it again. "You didn't pay them all off, did you?" She asked him with concern. "Talk about wasteful expenditure."

So you can put a price on freedom.

Kushina certainly did even if it was just his.

"You can't control his wallet too, Babe," Deidara rolled his eye. He jerked his head in the direction of his wife and mouthed the word "women," directing a knowing look at Minato.

"How did Uchiha find the connection?" Minato tried to rein things back into the realm of productivity. He had already lost so much time.

"You're shitting me. Sorry," he apologized before Kushina could berate him. "You're not," Deidara sighed long sufferingly, rubbing the side of his face dumbfounded that he had to spell it out. "You were hardly discrete. You were directly under the cameras outside. For weeks." He rubbed his eye. "You're the reason my vision is starting to go in my one eye. Do you have any idea how much footage I volunteered to watch of you? Way too darn much," Deidara answered before Minato could get a word in edgewise if he would have bothered to. "It was so dry too. I didn't even need to scrub anything." He sounded almost disappointed. At least he got to doctor scramble audio of him and Hora yapping - the redhead had called him his nickname. It could cause problems so Deidara took care of it before it could become one. If Minato went away - a moderate - who knew what crazy would come to replace him? The devil you know and what have you. "I know your face better than you do. It's been harassing me in my dreams more than my wife's!" He smiled sweetly, laughing sheepishly at said scowling wife.

"Jiraiya gave him the footage," Minato shook his head. He could not blame the man. He had to give the appearance of a clean business.

"The past couple of months. The old man got new cameras. The timing was serendipity. He fed Uchiha a lie about switching cloud providers and forgetting his password. He thinks with that big Uchiha brain of his, that he can put enough pressure on her to get to you," he snorted. "You left a hickey on her neck. What are you twelve? And she didn't have the decency to cover it up before she answered the door. What is wrong with you people?"

He saw the mark. He saw us on video. It's all circumstantial and a long shot but if anyone can make it stick, it's him.

Minato briefly closed his eyes. He did not have a palatable answer for Deidara because the man was right. He should not have left marks - proof. The primal part of him - the possessive part that he did not even know he possessed - relished the fact that it was his mouth that did that to her neck. He had not bothered to curb his impulses. He had given in and it must have slipped Sakura's mind if it came to her notice at all. It had happened so fast. It was not as if they gave them a heads-up. It was not as if Sakura could keep them waiting while she applied cover-up.

Shit.

"Whose neck did you suck on?" Kushina was suddenly there, with Menma in her arms. Her violet eyes were glittering at the prospect of juicy gossip. Some things really did not change. "Tell me, 'ttebane," she whined, her patience reaching its shallow end.

"Hot. Pink hair. Doctor. She seems nice," Deidara filled her in quickly with the highlights. "Great legs. An ass-"

Minato narrowed his eyes, effectively shutting up Deidara before he did something he would have to affront to regret. Deidara lowered his hands which were engaged in a gesture that was so far from innocent that even Jiraiya would not attempt it in front of the present company. Menma did not need to be in the room when his daddy was knocked on his ass.

"Oh!" Kushina's eyes lit up. "A doctor," she gushed, breathily. Her selective hearing did not hear anything past that point. She smacked him on the shoulder in a congratulatory gesture with the back of her hand. A hearty whap. "Sorry, dattebane! I totally forgot!" She covered her mouth with her hand at his hiss and recoiled away. Minato brought his hand to the site of intense throbbing. "Got any pictures of her?" She asked not even seconds later.

Still as trigger-happy as ever with those hands.

Bricks. Her hands were as solid and hard as bricks. Maybe even cinder blocks.

Minato ignored her. "What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything," Deidara snapped at him, growing impatient. "I have pictures and videos on my work phone, Babe. I'll show you later," He promised with a smile. It slipped off his face when he locked his lone eye with Minato's. "You're his dick."

Did she hit his head one too many times?

"Excuse me?" Kushina asked so Minato did not have to. "I didn't know you're into-"

"I'm not," he interrupted with more tightness than he should have. The pangs of pain were not helping his case. His eyes stung with moisture.

"Hey!" Deidara's face pinched together. "Watch how you talk to my woman, Namikaze!"

"It's fine," Kushina touched her hand to Deidara's arm. The agitation left his face immediately. "He's gorgeous. Shame, you two would be so cute together. Golden retriever and black cat energy," Kushina gushed, smiling prettily at the glare Minato directed at her.

I would rather peel off my own skin and hand-feed it to Cheddar.

Because being around Sasuke Uchiha a second more than strictly necessary was a second too many.

Focus.

Minato reminded himself, lip curled. "Explain," he directed the order at the detective.

Deidara sighed, preemptively. "Sasuke thinks you're his whale. You know, like the one from the story."

"Oh!" Kushina slapped a hand to her forehead. Menma was held to her chest in a chair hold. He kicked up his pudgy legs, abandoning trying to peel off his orange socks. Listening seemingly intently to the ways their voices fluctuated and rose. "Moby Dick, you idiot!" She scowled at her husband. "How can you not know that?" She smacked him. Hard.

"Isn't that what I said?" Deidara asked her, genuinely perplexed, rubbing the back of his head that throbbed from a contained location with a pout. "And what happened to watching our language around the boy?" He asked, accosted.

"Da!" Menma laughed heartily at his father's pain - deep-bellied. He was definitely his mother's son.

Minato was reaching the end of his patience, wondering who was holding their lone brain cell between them now. "Domeki, focus." He hoped it was Deidara. He needed it to be the detective.

The blond was less than pleased to have to look at him or spell this out for him. "He's obsessed with you seeing how he can't go after his own clan. Not how he is now. He doesn't have enough allies or backing to his name yet. No one takes him seriously and it doesn't help that more than half his coworkers are moonlighting as police. He's been building a profile. Collecting everything he can. Working around the clock. Rumor. Stories. Innuendo. Everything. For almost three years now. He lives, breathes, you and only you."

Three years? Why is it that I'm just hearing about this now?

"Could you have found a more creepy way to say that?" His wife asked him irately.

"He didn't have anything before because you've been well you," Deidara said with palpable annoyance, seemingly reading Minato's mind. "He probably has one of those crazy people conspiracy boards on you in his penthouse apartment. He's been dreaming about this day. And it's finally come." Deidara pointed at him. He spun his index finger clockwise. "You, locking you behind bars is his obsession," Deidara's frown only grew. A divot formed between his brows. Worry. Concern. Annoyance. The line contained it all. "He thinks - he believes - you can bring down the Nara Clan. He wants you to be the first piece that falls. He wants to destroy the Akatsuki. He wants to burn it all to the ground. And you're his accelerant."

Accelerant? Bring down the Akatsuki?

"No way," Kushina gasped, mouth open and eyes wide. Menma peered up at her, almost concerned. He fisted his hands in her hair, calling for her attention. Kushina patted him on the back without tearing her eyes off of her husband's face.

"He's ambitious," Deidara rubbed the back of his neck. "He's protected - Daddy looks out for him. He thinks he can pull this off. He has his eye on some up-and-coming ADA's. Hotshots who aren't afraid of anything. They're sharks. You know the type. The kind to willingly go head-to-head against that sleazeball Hoshigaki and that freak Momochi."

Defense attorneys. The worst - the best - money could buy. They have a ninety-nine percent win rate. The Clan has them on retainer. Just in case.

It seemed everyone was out to make a name for themselves. The next generation. They were not trying to work within the system like he had. They were trying to completely obliterate it - burn it to the ground. And from where he stood - somewhere closer to the top than the bottom he did not know if he admired or pitied them.

"If he gets you…this way, no one will dismiss him. No one will think he's just another Uchiha in a long line of corruption."

He's trying so hard to not be like him, like his father, like who he thinks his brother is.

Sasuke was marching toward something. Destruction. It remained to be seen whose.

"He's insane," the redhead shook her head. She looked between the blonds, searching their faces for traces of dishonesty. Cues. Kushina was looking for a cue to follow from someone better versed in this world than she was.

"He is. He's crazy enough to try," Deidara let out a dry, humorless chuckle. His hand rested on top of Menma's soft hair. "He's crazy enough to burn the whole world just to get back at his father. And your pink-haired doctor, she's his match."

Sakura.

The detective's words left a bad taste in Minato's mouth. The bitterness must have reflected on his face because Deidara moved further on the offensive - digging his fingers into the exposed nerve.

"You did this Namikaze when you didn't come here. Or go back to the Clan for treatment. Everyone and their mother knows you were at that station and that you got shot. That you were the target. Even if there's no evidence to back that up definitively, he - in what I thought was a stretch - claimed that you went to her, with her. That she treated you. He thinks the two of you are sleeping together." The blond paused his tirade, he pushed his jaw to the side, thinking better of whatever thought entered his mind. Or maybe not. "And you know, I thought he was bullshitting, grasping at straws."

"Minato," Kushina's voice was hollow, her face lost color. "She's a civilian," she uttered, her eyes were wide. "How could you…what were you thinking?"

Why does everyone keep asking me that? It's not like I wanted this to happen.

"He wasn't!" Deidara spat, with vitriol. "Not logically anyway. And now we have this huge mess. The young bloods are foaming at the mouth at the thought of war. The old hats are trying to figure the hell out what just happened. What happened?"

He did not know. His head was spinning. He needed to find Inuzuka. He needed to go to the source. The only one that was in the room with the key in his hands. "How is the warrant coming?" Minato asked, trying to steer the conversation back down the productive path.

"He's going to get it," Deidara was none-too-happy about the fact. "For her clinic. The old prune won't sign one for her apartment. No judge wants to touch that with a ten-foot pole. Expect a visit early next week. Monday."

Monday. Okay. That gives us time.

It gave him time. Minato nodded his head. He tucked the information away. The old prune - Hiruzen - was their go-to judge of choice as he was in the pocket of the Clans. He played both sides. And neither side wanted what Sasuke was pursuing. It was probably the easiest decision he made all week. He gave Sasuke enough that the detective would be occupied while also shielding them.

It's not the end of the world. I can work with this.

"I'll let you know as soon as I know," Deidara sighed warily. The bags under his eye sockets were not simply cosmetic. Deidara was not kidding when he said Minato made more work for him. Kushina - who was uncharacteristically quiet - was studying him intently. Judging openly as she no doubt connected the pieces of the puzzle why lieutenant Minato Flash Namikaze acted and continued to act so out of character - without a plan.

There was a groan. Wooden sandals and plastic heels tapped against concrete. Tap. Click. Tap. Tap. Click. Tap. Click. Click. Tap. They all - with the exception of Menma who was sleeping against Kushina's chest - turned in silent greetings of the two new faces. Kushina pulled away from the rough triangle she had formed and made her way to Tsunade. The two women and the baby ducked into a room. Deidara dipped his head. He grabbed the diaper bag on the pool table on his way to the door being held open for him by the blonde woman. Her amber eyes found his for a moment. Minato nodded in acknowledgment. Tsunade's lips twitched. Deidara was gone without a word. The door swung closed.

"Did Domeki fill you in?" Minato did not allow any grace period for his former mentor.

"Enough," Jiraiya crossed his arms over his chest. "You got an Uchiha tail on you."

Not on him but close enough for it to be a factor. A big one, potentially. "Do you want to yell at me too?"

"Remember the last lecture I gave you," the very tall man with white waved his hand dismissively after reading Minato's face. "Before this mess?"

"The one where you told me I was making the biggest mistake of my life letting Kush walk out of it?" Minato asked him impassively, shoving his hands in his pockets all the same as he repeated the grave words verbatim. They stayed with him all this time - to haunt him when he was at his most alone to wonder if Jiraiya was right.

A big head nodded sagely, convinced his lesson was not lost to the passing of time. "No use digging up corpses that have turned to dust. I have nothing more to add to that at this time." He let out a sigh. "What now?"

"A patsy," Minato answered without having to think twice about it. "I need a patsy."

"It's going to cost you," he warned just for the sake of it - checking off a box from a checklist.

What else was new?

"Anything on my mutt?" Minato's eyes narrowed a margin. He owed him some discipline. It did not do to pee on your master's shoes. And very expensive shoes they were.

"No callbacks on the flyers," Jiraiya sighed, he pressed his fingertips to his eyelids. The heat was not nearly hot enough nor pressure long enough for any real relief. "He'll turn up," his voice was textured with his weariness. He was beginning to feel his age. Truly. And the yoga, smoothes, and injections his wife mandated for the both of them could not change that fact. "We all need to come up for air."

A free breath inhaled,

Trapped in enclosure of bone,

Expelled, unconfined.

Air. Minato tilted his head back. The canned lights burned in his vision as he blinked. He wondered if she was in any place of mind to register the crispness of fresh air after this period of estrangement.

Loud clock counts ticks slow,

Moments stretch like endless skies,

Stillness echoes deep.

She recalled the Haiku Sumida wrote about the passage of time. The way it dragged when he was in a house that was made too big and too empty by the leaving of his first love. The solitude that pushed him to write just so his loneliness could mean something other than his despair. The clock was unforgiving for him. It was not a friend he could seek solace in. The clock tormented him. As it did to her now.

Or I'm just being dramatic.

It was a toss-up really, how anxious she was to leave the house and be somewhere - anywhere - and now she found herself just as anxious to go back home. She told herself it was because she wanted to learn what Minato had. It would go a long way to alleviating the restlessness that built up in her. He had a way of putting her at ease. That was why. It had nothing to do with the fact that she had gotten used to him being there. Always there. On more than one occasion she found herself looking for him to see if he was seeing the same funny commercial she had on the TV or the way Cheddar's whiskers had scrunched in annoyance when she dared to do more than blink or breathe while on his sofa. It had not been that long. It was rather not very long at all. But she had gotten used to him. In her home. In her bed. In her life.

And now there was yet another thing to deal with.

She kept her elbow off the table despite the heaviness in her head. Sakura poked the salmon on her plate. The dark grill marks under the shiny walnut sauce were perfect. It was even more impressive considering how her mother had grilled the stakes inside. The whole kitchen was perfumed with the smell. It made her stomach churn. She sucked on the piece of hard candy she had snuck into her mouth when her mother was not looking. The artificial orange flavor was helping with the nausea brought on by the bouts of overthinking.

She had driven down with a white knuckle grip on her steering wheel. She was sure that her nails had left marks on the leather. She had been looking at her mirrors with even smaller intervals, checking for an unmarked car following her. She had clocked it. It was parked at the next cul de sac over. Two plainclothes officers donning sunglasses were inside. If her mother noticed, Mebuki made no indication.

The fish isn't the only thing she grilled.

Sakura; Mebuki thoroughly grilled Sakura, giving her the third degree that would impress even detective Uchiha. Maybe she was not being fair. Mebuki did not have to worry about maintaining appearances of due process and the presumption of innocence. She could go straight for the jugular like a jungle cat - kill Sakura before she had a chance to eke out a sound.

"Mom," she picked at the conversation just as her fork did the same to the fleshy fish, not fully committed to anything just yet. "How do you know Ms. Uchiha?"

"We went to school together. We were classmates. She was always kind. She checked up on me when I dropped out when I got pregnant. She sent care packages. She called. Like everything it lost frequency with time. I got busy with Sakuto and she graduated and had her own son. She never did go to law school. That makes two of us," Mebuki's voice was reflective as she thought of her classmate for the first time in a while.

"Did we ever go to her house? Or invite her over?" Sakura feigned her level of interest. Her tone was conversational - light - it did not speak to the churning of her mind or the heaviness in her stomach.

"What, invite her over to our shack?" Mebuki let out a puff of air. Demeaning. "She came from and married into money, Sakura. Her husband owns half the spas and hot springs from Mori to Yuma! They have a real estate business. And that's not even half of it."

You could say that again.

"You must have met her sons, or heard about them," she kept her gaze trained to her plate. Why else would she set her up with them? Sakura did not know what she was looking for - digging for - but she held a belief she would know when she found it. Conspiracy theories. Did her father know about the Uchihas? His wife was dark-haired and dark-eyed with pale skin. She could pass as an Uchiha - just from what Sakura saw at a glance on the flat billboards she told herself she did not notice. She did not check because that was one rabbit hole she would never find her way out of.

The barrage of questions did not end there. Did they - the Uchihas - have something to do with the rather sudden and almost astronomical level of Kizashi Haruno's success? Her mother - she did not think her mother truly knew the true face of the Uchiha. Maybe she just did not want to believe it.

I don't know how many earth-shaking revelations I can take anymore.

"No," Mebuki shook her head. "Her youngest - the one I gave you the number of ages ago - was featured in a news article. Twice; once when he joined the Academy, then again when he became a detective because of the arrests of the manufacturers and distributors for that party drug that killed so many young men and women. He was the youngest in over a decade to be promoted to detective. It was all anyone could talk about for weeks. I reached out to her. I called to congratulate her. She had sent flowers for Sakuto. She was there at his funeral. You probably don't remember. She came alone. She hadn't changed her number. We chatted a bit. She asked about you - if you were seeing someone," Mebuki frowned at her. "Why are you asking about my classmate and her sons? Why now, all of a sudden, when you have Minato?"

When you have Minato, how strange it was to hear. The only thing it felt like she had was problems. A surplus of problems.

"No reason," she said quickly. Maybe too quickly.

"Sakura, for months - over a year - I've been pestering you to call him. Only for you to tell me you're not anyone's charity case! You used every excuse to the moon and back from they're rich, to he's a cop, to your schedules would never work out. All the while you had a great man like Minato hidden away from me! Do you have any idea how much work I went through to get that number?" Mebuki's tone was teetering dangerously close to demeaning. "The lengths I subjected myself to to secure your future?"

I didn't ask you to. Especially not for that family and that jerk.

"Forget I said anything, Mom," Sakura chewed on her tongue. Her stomach felt as if someone shredded it with a grater.

"Are the two of you having problems?" Mebuki was quick to ask and even quicker to assume.

"Nothing like that, Mom," Sakura tried to placate her, as draining as it was. "It was just a question."

"Are you in some kind of trouble, Sakura?"

The pinkette froze. Her mind raced with possibilities. Either her mother knew or her shrewd perception was on the money once again. She shook her head free of her debilitating, circular thoughts that spun her around and around all the while answering her mother's inquiry.

"I'm not in trouble, Mom," she raised her eyes to her mother's face. Verbal confirmation was necessary for someone like Mebuki.

"Would you even tell me if you were?" Now, it was more accusatory than a question and it left her insides aching. It took everything to not wrap her arms around her mother and seek comfort, to ask her to play with her hair until she fell asleep; to show weakness. To go back to feeling like she was fourteen years old again and it was just the two of them.

I wish I could, Mom. It's better this way.

"I would," she lied, tasting the acid of the tears she could not allow to well up in her eyes in the back of her throat. It burned. She regarded her plate with interest. She did not trust her ability to hold it together if her head was raised any higher.

"Where's Minato?" Mebuki finally asked the question from across the table. The frown lines around her lips were visible though her expression was neutral.

"Work," she pulled off a corner piece with her fork. The slightly overcooked asparagus was no more appealing than the pink, fleshy fish.

"Hm," her mother hummed in neither approval nor disapproval. "Something wrong with your salmon?" She asked into her plate, her knife sawed once and cut through it like butter.

"Not that hungry," she tried not to sound gloomy. She wondered if Minato told her mother that he liked salmon - an offhand comment he made while they were watching their cooking show - or if her mother just guessed with her boy-mom senses. Sakura tucked her chin into her black turtleneck. The mark was fading but her mother would have noticed immediately and let her disapproval be known.

You were raised better than this, Sakura.

She could hear Mebuki's judgment in her head.

"Are you pregnant?" Mebuki demanded, mind jumping from one scenario to the next as to why her daughter was being the way she was.

Where did that come from?!

Sakura fumbled her fork, just managing to catch it before it hit the table. "No," she said quickly, face red and ears burning. Her heartbeat picked up a couple of notches. "It would be fine even if I was," she could not help but add. "The salmon!" She blabbered - she was blabbering and unfortunately knowing that was not enough to stop herself. "Not the other thing. Salmon is perfectly safe for pregnant women," she spoke so quickly that her words tumbled over each other. "Which I am not," she added in a whisper into her plate. She could feel her face. Mortified.

God. I'm such a freak.

"Then you have no excuse," Mebuki huffed a hot breath in between her chews, seemingly unbothered by the sputtering it made the whole thing inconspicuous better than Sakura could purposely make it. "I'm surprised that you just showed up, asking about Uchihas on top of it."

Let it go. Please.

"You need groceries. Cheddar needs his food and litter," she sighed, lowering her fork. She let her hands rest atop her thighs. Just foregoing jeans or slacks for sixteen days, made her skin feel as if it were coated in burning tar. It was so unbelievably uncomfortable. She did not have the words. "Besides," she trawled. "Do I need an invitation to come home?" She raised her eyes until they landed on identical ones; ones that nearly had her convinced she was peering into a mirror.

"Home?" Mebuki blinked slowly. A home that had her name on the mortgage but Sakura never spent more than a couple of consecutive nights.

Her stomach twisted into a knot. "Home is where you are, Mom," she tucked a strand behind her ear out of nervousness.

You know that.

Mebuki's lips twitched. She dipped her head lower, focusing on her plate.

Sakura's heart migrated to her throat, rattling back and forth. Cheddar flicked his long tail. Back and forth. The nub at the end was hairless from where he most likely got into a scuffle with another cat. The hair never grew back.

"He misses Minato," Mebuki hummed, focusing on the cat. "He likes having another boy around. It balances things."

Sakura could only manage a grunt past the obstruction that had taken up temporary residence there.

"I made plenty of salmon and sauce. Take some back for him. Make sure he eats it within three days. Don't freeze it. It won't taste the same. It will dry out when you thaw and reheat it. Speaking of reheating, don't microwave it when you serve it to him. You might as well give him slop with lemon at that point. It would taste better. Sakura? Are you listening to me?"

Loud and clear Mom.

The pink-haired doctor nodded her head. She listened mutely as her mother listed care instructions for Minato's salmon.

xXx

"Dinner was delicious," Minato spoke from the sink. The tap was off and his plate, fork, and glass sat on the bamboo dish rack. "Ms. Haruno outdid herself. Do you think it's too late to send a thank you text today?"

Would it be more or less rude to wait until the morning?

"That reminds me," Sakura murmured, getting up from her seat on the couch and padding over to the door.

Minato wiped his hands on the blue towel that hung from the oven door handle, cobalt eyes tracking her movements silently. She was rooting through something by the console table. From the earlier sound of a zipper parting it was her purse.

He was standing by the couch by the time she had turned around. There was something small - wrapped in red tissue paper - in her hand. She crossed the room, sitting down in the middle cushion she had vacated. He followed suit, sitting to her right, the TV at a low volume with the closed captions flashing across the screen.

"Mom said this was for you," Sakura held out the rectangle toward him. "She planned on giving it to you today but she got me instead, so, there you go," she explained partially.

"For me?" He asked out loud, surprised.

"Hm," Sakura's eyes were on him. He could feel them. He flattened his palm. The paper crinkled as it transferred hands. She turned her gaze back to the screen, busying herself with covering their laps with the throw blanket. "You don't have to open it now," she said with a detached casualness that was convincing on the surface level. She was curious, he knew but she was not admitting to it.

It had been a while - he did not actually remember the last time - since he received a gift outside of a special occasion so he was out of practice. Rusty. Minato shook his head, bringing his right hand to flip it over so the seam side was facing up. He picked at the tape, carefully. She was watching him from the corner of her eye. His expression was neutral. He moved the paper to the side. He blinked. He took in the painted face on the white head. Red ears. Yellow eyes and nose. Black whiskers.

"Maneki-neko?" Sakura asked, frowning. "She got you a Maneki-neko keychain? Why?"

I've had more than my fair share of bad luck when it comes to relationships.

"Make your own luck," the cat seemed to convey Mebuki's message to him. He smiled. His fingers curled around the cat. "Maybe she thinks I need a little help," Minato regarded her with soft eyes. "Thank you, Sakura."

"Me?" She frowned at him, confusion still visible on her features. "What did I do?"

"For bringing it to me," he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead, eyes fluttering closed.

For being here.

"Okay weirdo," she tsked, wrapping her arms around his, resting her head on his shoulder. "You have salmon-walnut breath," she scrunched her nose.

He laughed, falling back against the cushions. Sakura came along with him. "So do you."

"Well," she smirked, eyeing him in some type of way. "Then I guess this isn't a problem then."

Before he could ask what she meant by this, she was kissing him. With vigor. No. it was not a problem at all. Not in the slightest.

"You're getting better," Sasori noted dryly, a purple sucker left his mouth with a popping sound - held between his fingernails painted in a dark maroon. The door closed with a groan from the hinges that called for grease, not silent in their neglect.

"Some days it's like nothing ever happened," he agreed with a slight nod. It also did not hurt that Sakura was on top of his physical therapy and incision site monitoring. She missed being at work. Her actions said it louder than her voice ever could. The need to feel useful was ingrained in her, propelling her work ethic.

"How did you get past Holmes and Watson?" Sasori asked in a tone dripping with sarcastic scorn.

"Shift change," Minato ran a hand through his hair. His eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't have much time. Move my money." It was high time that he got serious.

"Sure thing, Boss," Sasori inserted the lollipop back into his mouth. His left cheek expanded to accommodate the globe of sugar. "Nephew heard from Grand-teach about our fall guy. He still doesn't like me that much," Sasori played up the hurt feelings. "How much?" He asked when Minato's reception was frosty to the unnecessary quip.

"One fifty," Minato answered without missing a beat.

Sasori just avoided choking on the stick. He coughed indignantly, face red. "A brick and a half?" He asked, voice two octaves higher than usual. His eyes were wide, wild. He shook his head. "I'll get him to agree to half that."

Minato turned in his seat. His expression was stern with an edge. Dangerous. Not to be challenged. "No more negotiations. No more talking. Just move it." He did not have time for one of Sasori's schemes where he pocketed the difference. "I need your word that every last ryo goes to Haruto Nara. I need to hear it."

Tell me you understand. Tell me you'll obey.

Sasori puffed out his cheeks before begrudgingly lowering his head. "All a hundred and fifty thousand will go to pencil-neck Haruto Nara." He held up his hands to show that his fingers were not crossed. "On my mother's grave."

"Your mother isn't dead," Minato reminded him with disapproval.

"I've been a good boy this year, maybe Santa will make it so," Sasori's grin was stained purple from artificial coloring, same with his tongue. It was unsightly.

"Tell him - remind him - that the ADA will give him a lenient plea deal for coming forward on his own. His family will be taken care of," he stressed the importance of that point for his conscience perhaps.

He doesn't have to worry about that.

"They'll be living like kings," Sasori said with a scoff. "It would take Nara more than five years to make that much. They're going to think they won the lottery."

"This was a mistake," Minato's hand was around the chrome pull handle of the door. He tried. He would be able to look Sakura in her green eyes and tell her he tried. "Rihito will handle it."

"Lieutenant," Sasori just stopped himself in time, his fingertips nearly grazing Minato's back. "I'm sorry, okay?" He looked absolutely miserable. Hunched over and his hands in his lap. "I use humor to cope."

That's not entirely breaking news, Hora.

Minato was not phased in the slightest. The set of his jaw was sharp enough to carve into rock. His eyes were cold. Calculating as they assessed.

I'm trying, Sakura.

He was trying. He was trying to be patient but Sasori made it difficult. He did not know if his rope was shorter or if Sasori was going out of his way to be like this. There was only so much Minato could do.

"Haruto Nara will get the money. He will get the talk about a generous plea deal. He will be reminded not to name names on the Uchiha side. He will be debriefed on the details - the sanitized details Big Boss is okay with the public knowing. The reason for the shooting was a business misunderstanding. He will be reminded that his family will be taken care of and that when he gets out, his loyalty - his silence - will be rewarded handsomely again. No need to get Nephew further involved, right?" Sasori's eyes rolled to Minato's. All he saw was a genuine desire to please, to do something right after nothing but a string of wrongs.

"Yeah," Minato reached into his hoodie pocket. There was a crinkle of a bag. Clear and rectangular. He passed it to Sasori. "Seventeen rounds. That's how many I got off."

Sasori held the gun in his hand. He regarded it solemnly. "You're not going to have much left over to buy your freedom, Broskey."

"I'll figure it out," Minato's response was curt. He would find a way even if it meant playing hardball with the Big Boss. He was out once this was all over. One way or the other. "The replacement?" He stared straight at the ally, not witnessing Sasori tuck his service weapon - one that served him for over a decade - inside the inner pocket of his acid-washed jean jacket.

"In the bag." Sasori reached forward to lower the rear view mirror until a black duffle came into view. "It will be handled, Lieu. I'll make sure of it." He sighed. Soft and short. "Do you want me to stay? To watch her while you run errands?" He raised the mirror back into position. A brick wall reflected on its surface.

"No," Minato was already outside the door with the duffle bag slung across his shoulder. He tapped the roof of the car, opening his mouth but thinking better of it at the last moment.

Be good.

His would-be parting words remained inside the walls of his mind. Reverberating.

The bright white spots of the canned lights shone through the thin navy fabric that was adorned with horrible inaccurate half-moons and stars with five points. Her folded hands rested over her bellybutton. Her ankles crossed together as she continued to peer at the artificial blue night sky. It had to be deliberate, the choice he used for the topmost layer.

"Three," she said slowly, closing her eyes as if that would ease the sting of his judgment. "Including you," she added after some time when his silence was something she could not interpret one way or the other. She turned her head, eyes still closed, toward the direction of the warmth coiling off of his body. The sole reason she had shed her outer layer. The thin straps of her gray camisole bunched together, dangerously close to slipping from her shoulder entirely. Her pink lashes parted. Her breath nearly caught in her throat. Those minutes away - not looking at him - were all that was needed to make her forget just how beautiful he was. Stunning. "Is it higher or lower?" She asked; voice but a whisper.

"Lower," he answered her with as much transparency as she had broached the topic.

"Hm," she hummed, rolling onto her side - curling an arm until her palm was folded around his shoulder. "I guess I could have been less selective," she wrinkled her nose. "There was just no time or interest during undergrad."

"You were a double major," he reminded her astutely of what her priorities had been. The very priorities that served her well. "Summa cum laude?"

"And Dean's Scholar," she scoffed with feigned offense at his glaring oversight.

"My apologies," his lips tucked into a smile that was more playful than anything else. "I barely graduated high school." Minato's brow furrowed as perturbedness settled into his eyes and the curve of his mouth. "Did I actually graduate?" He asked with the same level of concern that overthinkers woke up from the dead of sleep to ask themselves or their partners where their birth certificate was.

She laughed. "Sorry," Sakura covered her mouth to hide yet another giggle that spilled through her fingers. He was just so adorable. "Do you want to know?" She asked him, her fingers tracing the side of his face from his chin all the way up to where his hairline began. His blond hair was held back by a black, spirally, metal headband. His skin was glowing softly and smelled faintly of rose petals. Lingering scents from their face masks. An at-home spa day of sorts. Minato had even painted her fingers and toes for her. A sage green color. Because it was supposed to be calming. And she had returned the favor with clear polish. He claimed the brush tickled. She had never considered that before. He had nice nail beds. She was slightly jealous.

"Only if you want to tell me," he answered with perhaps less honesty. She could see the curiosity behind his eyes. She moved officially off the pillow under her head and rested against his uninjured shoulder. She never had to think too deeply about her actions when he was concerned. Good or bad. She did not want to think about it - to have to label it.

"Number one," she popped her lips. "Was there, convenient. We were in med school together. He was from Kiri and intended to go back. So there was always an expiration date. It progressed naturally. It started off as a study group of half a dozen of us which turned into study dates. Late-night dinners at 2 AM. Ramen. Everything else was closed or serving cold food only. Some joke kisses between two people. Egged on by stress and pressure from friends and…," she felt herself grow embarrassed surprisingly.

"And vodka?" Minato asked lightly, filling her silence as if it were intentional on her part. Without effort, he covered for her shortcomings. Naturally almost.

She nodded, her thumb rested down his cheek, her fingers curved around his face. He did not complain or berate her for contaminating his newly cleaned pores. "Yes. Vodka. Blame Ino. I never drank vodka before I met her. She's a terrible influence."

His skin stretched under her hand. He turned his head slightly, kissing her palm. Their noses touched every now and then. She could count his lashes. She wanted to. But he kept distracting her, the bottom of his foot moved up and down her calf. She had made the right call wearing shorts.

"He was there. He was familiar. He was decent-enough looking. He wasn't going to hurt me. And he didn't. Not even when he went to complete his residency in Suna."

"He was what you needed at the time," Minato put it together succinctly for her.

"Yeah," she breathed, feeling her skin ignite when his hand settled on the curve of her hip. "The second," she tucked her bottom lip under her teeth in doubt of whether or not what she was about to say was that good of an idea after all. It was less palatable. Less clean. "He was in my brother's company. Remember Uncle Sakumo?"

Minato blinked twice, his face free of conclusions to jump to.

"His son, Kakashi," she pulled at the cotton of his shirt. "He was there, he came back after a few more tours, eight years after the accident. He kind of disappeared for a while. He does that; comes and goes as he pleases. Joined the Police Academy. District Seven. I didn't see him again until I was doing my residency at Med. He was a detective by then. He never paid me much mind growing up. He tolerated me because he wanted Sakuto's attention. He had a hard case, the first time. A woman and her children were killed in a domestic. He had set the suspect free just hours before the time of death. They didn't have enough to detain him. Kakashi blamed himself anyway. He was a mess. I was worried about him. I couldn't handle having someone else I knew dying on me. We started talking."

Never about Sakuto. She figured he was as conflicted about sleeping with his friend's little-little sister as she was about sleeping with her brother's friend. Sakuto was a line neither of them was willing to cross. The illusion - the promise of something that was slightly more than nothing - would be gone if they did. They knew that. Sakuto's name uttered out loud would be enough to bring one - if not both - to their senses. And that was all without the sizable age gap even when taking Kakashi's stunted emotional intelligence into account. It was not the greatest of looks for Kakashi. He had more to lose if people found out.

"We drank. We sat in silence. And then," she sighed, "we did more." Then it became all they did. They stopped talking. They kept drinking. The silence became everything. A bit like now, how the silence surrounded them thicker than any of the blankets or sheets overhead. "The last time I saw him in that way was a couple of weeks before everything. Nothing planned. It just kind of happened."

It just happens with him. That's how it works…worked?

She played with the fabric of his shirt, having no reason to feel as nervous and exposed as she did. It was none of his business. They were nothing. And yet she was sharing. Sharing the nature of her interactions with Kakashi. A man who dared not arrive at her doorstep without her permission usually granted via text. Lest it spooks her and whatever it is they did came to the end.

Comfort. That was the long and short of it. It was just seeking comfort in a world that hurt them both.

"Am I…?" Minato cleared his throat. He had gone still beyond his face. Even that part of him was reserved, guarded. "Am I impacting anything…by being here? Your understanding with him," he asked. Her unease found a home with him. It spoke to her.

She worked past the instinct that said to deny immediately. Just because she had never been in a relationship, it did not mean it gave her a pass to be careless with someone's feelings - no matter how good he was at concealing them from her.

"No," she furrowed her brow, frowning to herself. She could not read him. "Yes…I mean…I don't know what the right answer is," she admitted timidly. She did not have the combination of words that seemed more right than the others.

"There's a right answer?" Minato questioned her.

She peered at him through her lashes, lip parted and breath heavy. Shattered. He would shatter her if she gave him the chance; like a stone thrown at a crystal sculpture - her glass heart. Did she imagine the intensity in his eyes increasing? Or the way his grip on her hip became harder to forget.

"Do you want there to be?" She found herself asking without fully understanding if she wanted to know her answer much less his.

"Guard not inside out. No walls or shades, just pure light - Thoughts set free, open," Minato smiled. Her heart fluttered, lips parting to draw in a breath because suddenly it was not enough through her nose. He stole it all. The air from her lungs. And just like that, as quickly as it had come it was gone. The emotion left his face and eyes, only to be replaced by a smirk. Confident. He pressed his lips against hers. Barely. Just because he could. Because she was there. She nearly whined at the contradiction: simultaneously too much pressure and nowhere near enough.

"Six," he breathed hot, expelled air into her open mouth, tickling her uvula. Adding to her agitation.

"What?" She blinked away the lust, the emerald envy.

"Six," he was just far enough that she would have to move to kiss him again. He ran the top of his blunt thumbnail along the bottom swell of her lip. A taunt. He was in control. He was always in control. "Not including you."

"So seven," she pouted. Her brain was still able to do that level of remedial math. She was expecting double digits at least - at best. Maybe her most intrusive thought called out triple-digit numbers at one point or another. Her insecurities were loud enough.

"Disappointed?" His smirk grew in smugness at the rise of her ire.

Sakura rolled her eyes, shedding what lingered over her vulnerability. She did not debate long whether or not to just stay silent. He was not going to elaborate. Not right now. And she did not have the patience to wait for a possibility.

"Have you heard me complain?" She asked him haughtily, as if it were an accomplishment on her part somehow.

"No," he smirk softened into a smile. And her stomach fluttered again. Embarrassingly. She wondered if he could feel it. They were pressed so close, somehow that happened and it escaped her notice. Maybe if she noticed, she would have to do something about it.

"Ino," she traced a line from his jugular notch to the underside of his chin with a painted nail. "Said that it's a red flag when a man asks a woman about body count."

Minato's lips tugged into the smallest of frowns for the faintest of movement. His nose grazed against hers. His lashes dropped heavily over his eyes. "I dislike that term."

"Red flag?" She asked, innocently, mesmerized by the movement of his lips. Enthralled.

He nipped the corner of her mouth. She squirmed just enough to tease him further.

"Body count," he left no more space for misunderstanding - genuine and intentional - just as their bodies connected, leaving fewer gaps for air. "It's dehumanizing."

"I agree," she murmured, tilting her head just enough that he both heard and felt her words. Her top lip was tingling. "And you didn't ask. I think it's just being responsible. Candid." She was not ashamed. She did not think she would be ashamed if the number was ten times what it was. Maybe even more. Maybe.

"I agree," his palm was wide and flat against the small of her back, encouraging her to him.

"Did you love any of them?" She asked, inhaling his scent deeply, eyes nearly closing sealed. How strange of a question to ask surely while they were in each other's arms. Legs tangled and sharing breath. Having to breathe in multiple times to meet the requirement for their brains.

"No."

"Did any of them come close?" Her chin pressed against his. "Have you been in love before?"

"No." He adjusted to catch her eye. "You?"

"Love's overrated," she exhaled through her nose.

"Is that a no?" He asked, not satisfied with her flippant and rather bitter statement. A cliche. Maybe it was still too soon for her to admit it outloud - to anyone (maybe even herself) - that she wanted what they all did: to love and be loved. At the very least, she could do better. She could put a bit more effort into it.

She sighed, peeling her face from his. A knot twisted in her stomach. Or maybe it was her gut. She was so tangled it was hard to know. His eyes - his gaze - were no-nonsense. She had the sudden urge to correct the slide of her strap. The one that hung between her shoulder and the crook of her arm.

"Yes." Her tongue clicked when her lips parted to push out a sound. "I have not been in love. Before. Ever." She tilted her head up. The bright white light through the thin navy fabric. She swallowed.

"But you had fired a gun before, what a world," he sighed deeply.

"I was," her voice trailed off. "Eleven," she squinted in concentration. "Yeah, between eleven and twelve the first time. Kizashi and Sakuto would go to this open field and disappear for hours. I was so jealous. So one day I told myself I would sneak into Sakuto's truck and go with them. Make them deal with me. I was convinced they weren't on to me. My hands were sweaty. My heart was pounding. I was too worked up to wonder why they didn't put the guns in the backseat like they always did but rather in the trunk. They knew. They absolutely knew. I grew bored after some time of them just shooting and talking. So I came out of the back seat - he never locked the doors. It was cold that day. Sakuto made a big show of being surprised. I was beside myself. So proud. They had some cans lined up. Sakuto said if I could hit three out of the six, he would buy me ice cream."

"He taught me how to line it up and pull the trigger. I hit four cans. About seven yards away. He bought me ice cream. It was a good day. A really good day. He was so proud. He said it was a skill that was important to know. I think in his own way he was trying to prepare me for the world without completely shattering my innocence if that makes sense?"

"It does," Minato was quick to validate.

"The next year he tried to take me to an indoor shooting range. The man next door in the stall had a shotgun. I had two layers of protection. Over the ear and in the ear earplugs. The man got off one shot. My whole body rattled. I couldn't stop shaking. I was having such a different reaction. Visceral. Sakuto got me out of there. We just made it in time. I threw up in the parking lot. He felt so bad. Guilty for a long time. He didn't try again. And that was the last time I held a gun in my hands, well before you know."

Sakura took in his pale face. He lost all color. "Minato?" She called out to him, nuzzling her face into his neck. "What's wrong?" She breathed against his skin, placing a tentative kiss before peeking up at him.

"You told me you fired a weapon," he said, voice weak.

"I did because I did," she tugged on his hair with a force that was far from painful. It was meant to ground - to keep him from being whisked away by the wind.

"When you were eleven!" He countered with wide eyes. "Important information I wasn't given at the time."

"Or twelve," she corrected with a giggle. "What?" She asked his openly gawking face. She pushed his jaw closed with the back of her hand. "Have the mechanics of guns really changed all that much in twenty years?" She tilted her head to the side and smiled prettily. "Can you blame me? I wanted to instill confidence," she said with disingenuous levels of sincerity. The mirth of her face did not help. "And it's not like you had a whole lot of options."

Minato shook his head. He tucked her under his chin. "You're something else, Sakura."

"You're too nice to say crazy," she sighed in contentment. He smelled so good. He was so warm.

"Words reflective glass, truth unveiled in each verse said. In sureness, I speak," he spoke Sumida's words that he felt to her. "I say what I mean, Sakura. You respond well under pressure. Don't look for conjecture."

"I don't like being told what to do." A scowl and roll of green eyes accompanied her words. "And duh, I am a doctor, you know," she shot back with sass at his under-pressure comment. A squeeze to her rear had her squealing. "That was dirty," she accused him with red flushed cheeks.

"My sentiments exactly," he delivered his point with a wink.

"While we're on the topic," Sakura tracked a finger from one collarbone to the other, slowly. "Why the suits, Minato?" She changed her mind last minute to warm him up with a question adjacent to the one she was curious about. "Does the Clan mandate a uniform?"

"Mandate might be too strong a word," the opening was followed with a small sigh. The corners of lips pulled into a ghost of a smile - a teaser of what it could end up being. Dazzling. Breath-taking. So damn pretty. "Traditionally suits were worn. How you present yourself matters."

"Hm, just like in civilian society." Her finger traced circles on his warm skin. Anywhere it could reach without much hassle. She mused internally that Minato really was just human and not some extra-terrestrial being from a planet with humanoid like creatures that were evolutionarily more advanced or something - not that she spent cycles thinking about it with his chest pressed against her back at three in the morning or anything. He was just a human man who liked to wear really nice suits because of tradition - apparently.

Why he wore a suit had an additional more personal reason. If he met his end unexpectedly, the intention was that when he saw his parents and Shika again, he would already be in appropriate attire. A suit. A suit that he lacked when he said goodbye to his parents. A suit he donned - that still hung in his closet in the suit bag - when said goodbye to his best friend and brother. He wanted to be presentable. At his best even in the face of the worst.

"I look good in a suit."

She let out a tiny laugh, nothing more than a puff of air. "You do," she nodded in ready agreement. "You look good in anything." Her face turned sour. "It's not fair really. What do you need such long and thick lashes for? You're already tall and fit and have a symmetrical face."

"How did I miss all this resentment?" He poked her cheek, his eyes sparkled with mirth. Delight.

"You're unobservant," she managed with a straight face. "Was," she smoothed out the wrinkles she made in his shirt. "One of the six before me, Konan?" She asked him demurely, looking at him through her lashes. "Before you get too far in your head," she traced his lips. Confusion cut with curiosity reflected on his face. "Ino," she smiled preemptively at his soft huff. At least he was polite enough to not outright roll his eyes. "Is under the impression that the only way to get on Konan's shortlist for non-celebrities or billionaires is to sleep with her. Now, it's probably not the only way," she paused to regard him measuredly with different parameters. "I can't see you pursuing other untasteful avenues. So either you spent an obscene amount of money - which if you told me, I could tamper Ino's expectations, or you…," she wiggled her brows less than innocently, "put out to get put on the list."

Minato opened his mouth and bit down on her finger, just enough to elicit a reaction. Sakura glared at him, retracting her hand away, disgruntled.

"None of the above," he answered, flat.

"There were only two options," Sakura said with a frown. "Neither, that should have been how you answered that."

"College dropout, remember?" He grinned at her, not one to pass up on an opportunity to tease.

"Konan and I go way back," he clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes at the expression she donned on her face. Like a cat who just captured a canary. "Not like that." Sakura held up her hands in mock acceptance. "Back when she was still early in her career, she was having some trouble with some Akatsuki affiliates loitering around her shop - before she was on Shiso Street in the Fashion District - making it uncomfortable for her customers and her."

"And let me guess," Sakura tapped her chin to ponder what possibly could have happened. "You took care of it?"

Minato's eyes moved from right to left giving the impression that he was trying to recall. "Something like that. It's been so long." Humility. He wore it well. Almost as well as those suits Konan made for him.

"So you save the day, her shop takes off, and she gives you a discount?" Sakura summarized. "In some order," she added with a hand wave.

"More or less. No discount though. Her work is art. She's earned every last ryo. She's ruined me. I can't go back to anyone else."

"Good for her," Sakura tried her best to keep the sudden spike in jealousy out of her voice. She had seen the social media posts - the clips of her packed shows. Ino even managed to get them tickets once - secondhand - standing room only. Konan was beautiful. Gorgeous. The woman could model her own designs every bit, as any of the professionals walking down the runway in six-inch heels with the ease of flip-flops. And from the interviews Ino forced her to watch during the rare lunch breaks they had together, Sakura had built the impression that the-very-secretive-about-her-private-life-Konan was truly a good person. Kind. Thoughtful. Smart. Humble. Waste-conscious. She had no shortage of good qualities. Just like she had no shortage of excuses - reasons - to summon Minato for a fitting or consultation for a new design. Sakura herself knew just how quickly things could escalate - ignite - if sparks were there. Just a glance. Just some contact that was on the surface level innocent enough, her long, thin fingers resting on Minato's thigh, slowly inching up to check the fit of his pants, maybe undoing the pins that held them in place.

She - at the incessant pestering of one talk host in a promotion circuit of her new line - had let it slip she was single. Konan had eloquently said something along the lines of seeking the perfect match with someone's soul beyond their current physical temporal form - she was very into spirituality - although she would not be mad at having something "enjoyable" to admire with her warm amber eyes as well.

They're both equally attractive - inside and out. They would look so good together.

Sakura turned her head away to hide the way her teeth came together, straining her bite. It was rather hard to do when a hand on her chin - fingers curled around and thumb pressing in - coaxed her back in the opposite direction.

"Sakura," he rolled the syllables off his tongue, sending warm fuzzies down the length of her spine. "Where did you go?" He asked in a gentle voice, a pleasant warm breeze on a sunny beach day. "You drifted off on me." He kissed her eyelids. The right first then the left. She kept them closed, taking the excuse. It was easier than having to read what he contained. The delicate skin burned.

"I'm here," she said with suspect levels of conviction. She was thinking but she was not one to admit that.

With you. Right now. For right now. For however long that may be.

Because everything was temporary.

"Have you ever considered that Ino's not always right?" He posed the question; his smooth voice filled her ears to the brim. "She doesn't know everything." Thumb migrating along the path of her jaw. He had started from the shell of her ear. Pink lashes parted. "I don't mix business with pleasure."

Ino would debate you down until you lost the will to live - ripping it from your soul - if she heard any of that.

"Hm," she held complexity in her expression as she regarded him, languidly. "I should remember that for next time." Because she was committed to being difficult. Even if she was the one to hurt her own feelings. That was neither here nor there.

"Next time?" He choked a brow. He had a perfectly proportional forehead for his face - for what it was worth.

"A little late now don't you think?" She pinched his cheek, patting it to soothe the injury that preceded the insult. "For us."

"Us," he stated, face completely neutral. "I was never going to pay you." It was never business. Not for him. Never for him.

"So all those breakfasts and impromptu cooking classes weren't payment for services?" She asked, playfully. "I thought you were familiar with my sliding scale policy," she piled on perhaps more than a little tone-deaf.

"Just pulling my weight," he matched her tone and the air that surrounded her - them. "Otherwise why else would you keep me around?"

"The danishes," she nodded solemnly at the enlightenment.

"And the coffee."

Her smile was distracted so it never reached her eyes. "Can we try those noodles I was telling you about? While we wait out grand-reopening rush?" The shop had been closed for renovations after a kitchen fire gutted the hidden gem - a secret Tani would take to the grave before they let anyone north of them catch wind of it. The threat of the horror of having to stand in line behind thick clouds of perfume and expensive fur coats was enough for them all to keep their lips sealed. "I found a recipe online that a small forum said was as close as you can get. And we can even compare the two!" She gushed with building excitement. Her mouth was practically watering.

"Send it to me. We'll give it a try," he was quick to answer.

Sakura smiled at him. His mere presence was enough to offset her anxiety. But what about when heaviness settled onto him? "Tomorrow's Monday," she finished with a sigh. It was nice while it lasted. But reality always had a way of winning. The prospect of reunion with noodles that she was deprived of for eighteen months was nowhere close enough to combat that.

"Hm," his fingers on the small of her back twitched. It was unmistakable. Undeniable. "Are you okay?"

"I think so," she harassed her lower lip between her teeth. "You're incredibly talented," her eyes moved the length of the expanse. She turned her head, voice containing marvel. "This is immaculate work."

"You like?" He grinned, moving his hand up and down her arm, giving her camisole strap a home over her shoulder on his first pilgrimage as he worshiped the skin.

Sakura nodded her head. "You have a calling," she mirrored his smile. "If you ever find yourself needing a career change, you should consider this full-time."

"Building forts?" His question was teasing, light - without seriousness.

"Seems like less of a hassle than your current job," she winked to punctuate her point.

"It's good to have options if I'm not cut out for owning a club," was his answer that accompanied a chuckle that she experienced more than she heard.

"Hm," she hummed with contentment. "Thank you, Minato," her eyes held her gratitude. "For doing this. For humoring me. For helping me get my mind off it all." She teased her fingers through his hair, unable to help herself. The sunshine yellow strands were so silky. Soft. "So a club?" She raised her brows.

"As an investment," Minato sighed preemptively for what had to be another round of playful jest, lips tugging upward with amusement.

"I can't imagine you as a club owner. A bouncer maybe…but even that is a stretch. You'd probably be the only bouncer in history that smooth-talks someone into leaving without them even realizing it," she let out a small laugh at the picture she imagined. "You know they're people and loud at clubs right?" She tapped his nose.

"It would be the safest club around. You would never need to stand in line. A VIP table waiting for you whenever you're in the mood to dance and not be harassed. No funny business," he vowed almost excitedly at the prospect. "Half off all the vodka you want."

"VIP and half-priced drinks," her eyes lit up. "Did you tell the other six that too? Is there a chance we'd all end up sharing a table?"

"Sakura." He could not imagine a worse scenario for him - not that he was willing to give it much of an effort.

She giggled; mouth moving and scenarios spinning of this supposed club and club owner only teasing him with torment every fourth word.

Her stammering heartbeat had not come down to a normal rate in the entirety of the time she had been in here. Since the door was opened and the boots clomped in. A couple of the crime scene team had been kind enough to wipe their feet but she could see the muddy footprints tracked in on her once glistening floors under the harsh fluorescent lights. It had rained last night. It was not entirely its fault she had not slept, staring at the dark ceiling while her thoughts spun her around and around. She had tossed and turned, tossed and turned until she found the perimeter of patience. She stood with her hands folded by the wall that contained her later brother's military photograph. The most recent one they had before his demise.

She watched - as was her right - as they tagged, photographed, and sampled everything. Her skin was itchy under her jeans. Her red sweater felt like barbed wire on her skin. She tried not to tug on the neckline of it. She could not put it past detective Uchiha to read into it as an admission of her guilt. She had plenty of it. The Sakura that had gone down the steps - blindly, foolishly, dumbly - was a stranger to her now. That Sakura got a pass. She only had one goal: to help people. She was admirable.

The Sakura that now stood under the picture of her dead brother was less straightforward. For her, things were less cut and dry. Yes, she has saved Minato's life. But she fired a weapon to do it. Yes, she stitched him together. But she had threaded lie after lie together as well to uphold it all. And today was no different. Perhaps it was the biggest lie of all. A complete waste of time, money, and effort.

She pushed up against the cubbies as much as she could. She was in everyone's way. There was no place where she could step into her own clinic that was not an impediment to someone else doing their job.

They're just doing their job.

And she needed to do hers. She had to stay calm. She had to stay in control. Her silence, her aiding and abetting, her lies were so much more than what she did in that station. Self-defense could not be argued now. She did not want to argue that now. That door was closed. That path was left well behind. She only wanted to look forward.

"Dr. Haruno?"

Sakura blinked, broken from her stupor by an authoritative voice. Polite but stern. "Yes?"

The woman with dark green hair held in a sleek ponytail pointed to the cabinet behind her. "The key?"

"On the counter," Sakura took one step forward - momentarily forgetting that her help would not help here - she crossed her arms, mouth clamped shut as the woman in a blue jumpsuit with 'CSI' in bright yellow block letters across her back slid the key from the countertop to her awaiting cupped gloved hand. She stepped to the side to allow the photographer to take his photographs before she touched anything.

Click. Click. Click.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Sakura watched the second hand of the clock ticking moments of her life away. Despite knowing that, she found herself wishing it moved faster. She remained rooted, eyes darting to the door that led to her home. He only had permission to search the clinic and she was not dumb enough to give him a chance to expand the parameters.

Rooted, stagnant tree,

Shadows' and light's allotter,

Secrets strangled, soft.

Sumida helped her pass the time. A grip held onto reality as she recalled and silently recited. A common link that connected her to him wherever he was currently. Like a tree, she remained rooted firmly in her convictions. The ground would shake before she did.

Stubborn.

xXx

"Do you know he is affiliated with the Akatsuki?" Sasuke asked her smoothly, not gracing her with his gaze. He crouched down, eyes squeezed closed as he peered at the underside of her exam chair through the lens of an expensive camera. He clicked a picture.

"No," she answered the question just like the rest: without color. Sasuke had been so smug when he all but slapped the warrant to her forehead. He was part of a team of five - a photographer, two CSI technicians, and his partner Deidara. But that was hours ago. Now it was just him, clicking and asking away. Warrants she learned did not come with time limits beyond the twenty-four hours of a day. He could milk every second if he damn well pleased. She tried and failed not to stare at the yellow tape with bold letters that spelled out "Crime Scene" in all capitals. It crossed over the street entrance of the clinic. A sash of shame.

He's trying to humiliate me on top of everything else.

"What do you know about the Akatsuki?"

More than I ever would have liked.

"They're bad news." What was more to know? Decent people stayed away. Never did she think decency could come from an unlikely place. The whole nurture vs nature theory. Ino would have a field day, chomping at the bit to interview Minato. Her dirty little secret that was starting to feel like anything but.

"What did he tell you he did for work?" Sasuke tilted his head, pausing from his task just long enough to regard her. White rubber gloves were stretched over his hands. His tie was held back by a gold clip decorated with a red and white fan. A symbol synonymous with the clan he claimed to renounce.

"He didn't," Sakura cleared any innuendo of weakness from her throat with a cough. "We didn't talk much."

"Oh?" Sasuke had risen to his feet. The camera with the expensive lens hung carelessly from his hand. "The nature of your relationship is not conversational?"

"There is no relationship to have a nature," she held his gaze. She would not be reduced to anything less than she was under it.

"Dr. Haruno," Sasuke sighed, he placed his hand under his nose, fingers curled toward his lips. "The bleach smell might be getting to me. The fumes."

"Sorry to hear that," her face did not align with the sentiment of her words even remotely. "A certain standard of cleanliness needs to be maintained for medical clinics. Environments like this can be difficult for individuals with certain predisposed biases. Medically speaking of course," she added with a twitch of her lips.

"Of course," Sasuke smoothed down his fine brow with his gloved hand. "Perhaps a drink will help?" His eyes flickered to the door. Restricted.

"Absolutely," she kicked off the wall. Her black ballet flats clicked off the white tile streaked with brown. Mud that she would have to clean later. They brought in the smell of rain with their work boots. "Please have a seat," she gestured to the exam chair.

Sasuke, with a wry smirk, instead opted to walk to the far back wall of the room. He sat against the chair closest to the stairwell. The camera was deposited on the open seat to the right of him. "Do you have tea?"

"All kinds," she reached for the coffee maker on the counter closest to the street entrance. She pulled an insulated single-use cup from her cabinet, she pressed down on the red lever, filling the cup with hot water. "White, Black, yellow, orange, green, matcha, oolong, floral, citrus, decaf, pick your poison."

"Surprise me."

"Black it is," she fluttered her fingers over the canisters that contained individually wrapped packets. "Do you like it with sugar and cream?"

"No," Sasuke rolled his shoulders, grunting.

"I must say you're dedicated," she gathered the red packet and the cup and made her way to him. She held out both - one offering in each hand. Sasuke nodded his head in thanks before taking them from her. "Taking your own pictures and samples. Is that standard procedure for detectives?"

"No," Sasuke tore open the package with his canine tooth, setting the wrapper next to the camera. "Just thorough."

"Sounds like trust issues," she crossed her arms, eyeing him top to bottom as he steeped the tea bag.

"Could be," he did not argue. He scratched the corner of his mouth. "Did the two of you really not talk?"

"You're not the only one with trust issues," she noted without bitterness. "I just thought he was a pretty face. Nice to look at. That's it. I actually thought he might be a lawyer or something." It had been Ino but he did not need to know that.

"The last patient you treated was Hiro Kimura? The neighbor boy," he added as if she did not know who that was.

Sakura shook her head. "No. Mr. Aoto Honda. My elderly neighbor. Apartment 2-D. The emergency call was associated with my name." It was a necessary evil. No ambulance would have come under an hour and a half had Ms. Honda not used her name. And they would not have driven him to Konoha Med that was for sure. Anko and Asuma did it out of a favor for her. They were who she rode with the most back when she was burning the candle at both ends. It also opened her up to this - she gave away her location. Reminded the force of her existence on the off chance they forgot.

"In the clinic, I meant," Sasuke clarified with a surprising level of patience.

"Yes."

"And that was before the subway incident?"

"Yes."

"Why is that?"

She pretended to weigh the question, trying so hard to have it not come out as rehearsed. The bags under her eyes were a witness and symptom of the fact that she did not sleep at all last night and did not allow him to either - on accident. So Minato had grilled her. Over and over. Asking her questions. Rapid fire. Outlandish. Rough. Gently. And she felt all the better for it. She was prepared.

"Just how things are I guess. Sometimes the need for the clinic is more than I can handle. Those are bad days. Other times I can go weeks without patients. It is not that out of the ordinary. I also hold classes every other month that go over basic first aid and signs to look out for - stroke, choking, and the like. I think they are helping." She was honest in her lies. The truth made it believable, she hoped.

"He hasn't reached out to you?" Sasuke asked her the same question in a third unique form.

"No," she answered the same way she always did.

"He is not threatening you?" Sasuke was leaning forward. She noted that he had yet to drink his tea. "We can protect you. If you saw the shooter - the shooters. If you saw him. I can protect you."

"I saw nothing," she said firmly. "I was too scared to see anything. I was a coward," she let her voice catch. Just enough to remind him that she was not familiar with this world. She should know nothing. She was nothing. She could not be what he sought.

"Dr. Haru-"

A loud buzz for a couple of seconds at a time interrupted him. With an annoyed huff, Sasuke reached into his pocket. He pulled out his phone. "Uchiha," he said his greeting, making it known just how inconvenienced he was. "What?" He stood up quickly. Sloshing his tea onto his hand. Burning the skin. He shook free of the scalding liquid. "What?" He repeated again, this time angry. "No, I-," he clenched his jaw tightly enough for her to hear his teeth clack. "Yes," he murmured with his shoulder facing her; head bowed. "I understand." He glared at his phone, pulled from his ear. "Stay in town," he said to her, barely stopping to duck under the crossed crime scene tape leaving her standing there, bewildered eyes tracking the steam from his discarded cup. It fogged the lens of the very expensive camera.

What was that?

Her head felt heavy with thought and emotion but against his shoulder, it felt light. Sakura curled into him, knees drawn and angled toward his lap. The backlight of the TV was the only source of glow in the room. His hand worked in her hair; massaging and having her fight off sleep. Sleep that her body and mind so desperately needed but she was too stubborn to admit.

She has nearly succumbed, belly full and her body warm. A scent that was now registering as familiar filled her nose - the majority of her senses occupied by Minato. She was jostled slightly into the realm of the conscious by the light on her eyelids intensifying. She blinked. The channel had been changed. She rubbed her eyes. Her mouth opened before she herself was even aware. She slowly sat upright but she still managed to feel lightheaded.

"Is this real?" She asked in a voice heavy with sleep, scratchy and thick. "Tani subway shooter surrendered himself into District 11 station?" She read the headline next to the red "Breaking News" banner. "Haruto Nara?" She frowned at the headshot with a blue background - the same background used by the government when issuing driver's licenses. He was a man with black and white hair who just stepped into middle age. His face was foreign. It was even more different than the grainy CCTV footage of a man with bleached blond hair walking to the police station.

"It's real."

Minato's voice, although gentle and low, startled her. She tore her eyes from the TV and the talking heads to blink at him. He took both her hands in his. It was a good thing too because he stopped her from doing something childish, like pinching herself.

"It's over?" She asked the question that was burning inside of her - the only one she could handle right now.

"Publically," Minato answered. "It will be over soon."

What does that mean?

She ground out in frustration, or rather she wished she did. She could not bring herself to ask. She sank back into the couch, exhausted. She blinked lethargically when he covered her with her dusty pink throw. His hand was back in her hair. His lips were at her temple. She fell asleep before she was any the wiser left to grapple in her subconscious if it was all a dream or not.

Chapter Text

"Did you know about this?" It felt stupid to ask, she felt stupid for asking but she wanted something. She was after something: honesty. His. So she asked with trepidation on her face and uncertainty fluctuating the pitch and smoothness of her vocal chords.

"Yes," he did not try to deny it as he sat across from her with his plate empty save a few crumby remnants of his breakfast sandwich and his second half-finished cup of coffee.

Her foot bounced up and down on its toes; the anxious motions were enough to impact the stability of the table. Neither brought attention to the fact.

"Did you have a hand in it?" Sakura scrunched her hair gathered in a bun. She was not like him. She could not listen intently with so much patience. She needed to move. She needed an outlet. She was seconds removed from pacing.

"I did," Minato answered, unphased.

And that bothered her. "Does he," she racked her brain trying to recall the name she had read in a sleep-deprived, exhausted haze - not fully convinced she was lucid. But the brain could not think up faces. So it was not a dream; because she remembered his face. Vividly. "Does-"

"Haruto Nara," Minato supplied and in any other circumstance she would have found it helpful.

"Does Haruto know that he's facing fourteen years in prison for possession and discharge of a firearm?" Assuming there were no other charges that the D.A. tacked on. She pressed her fingertips until they were nearly numb. Her elbows were bent on the table, folded inwards.

"Up to fourteen," Minato leaned back in his chair. He regarded the blue block letters on her oven with flat eyes. It was six in the morning. She supposed he would much rather be in bed still. His appearance was disheveled. Hair was even more shaggy and uncooperative than usual. He did not even bother to zip up his black fleece hoodie. The white corner of the small rectangular adhesive bandage popped against all the darkness it surrounded. "Up to fourteen. He'll get a generous plea deal. His clan-appointed lawyer is a good one." He too was a shark. Once he smelled blood, it was over. "He'll get at most five years and be out in two years for good behavior."

Oh good. You have it all figured out.

There was so much in his limited words that she could not substantiate. How fourteen got slashed to five only to end up being two - the math was beyond her. Minato's nonchalance did not sit right with her. At all. It felt routine - procedural. Like it was just another day for him and it very might well be. She did not like being reminded - having it thrown in her face - that she did not know things about him. Maybe it was more accurate to say she knew something - very limited things - about him because the unknowns seemed to outnumber the known. At least two to one.

"Is he married? Does he have a family? Elderly parents?" She leaned forward, hands folded not in prayer or plea. Fingers pressing against her knuckles. They each had an assignment, to keep each other contained. She kept her eyes on his hands: one curled around the handle of his mug and the other flat on the table. They were clean physically but her mind wondered just how dirty they were under the surface after tinkering with all the things she did not see nor understand.

Do you know? Do you even care to?

"He has a wife and son. His parents passed away years ago. Peacefully. His son's eight." He provided information. He seemed to have answers for everything. Even questions she did not get the chance to formalize and ask. "They will be taken care of."

I'll take care of it.

A variation of what he said to her. It clicked. Sakura stiffened. Her eyes snapped up to his. Watching and waiting. Calculating. He always thought before he spoke. Unlike her.

He's not ruled by his emotions. Calm, he controls the room. He controls the situation.

That fact was not lost on her despite her being the one to ask questions.

"What does that mean?" She asked slowly in an amateur attempt to replicate his demeanor. "They will be taken care of," she parroted his words back to him, unable to make them her own.

"It means," Minato exhaled a breath. She saw indecision mar his symmetrical features for a split-second - a small crack in otherwise a steeled exterior. Detached. "This is how the Clan operates. Nara - Haruto - is a low earner. The Clan offered him more than double what he made last year and was on track for this year for the next two years. His family is properly compensated."

How? How can you say that so easily?

"Money isn't everything," she compounded her self-righteousness with indignation at the lack of his, overcompensating. "His son, and his wife, are going to miss two years with him. Two whole years, Minato."

"I am aware."

She narrowed her eyes at his dismissiveness, empty-handed for anything that would give him the benefit of the doubt. "Are you?" She bit out before thinking it through as usual. She was quick to fall back into old patterns. "You called him a good man - a decent man - yourself." Decency was probably what sealed his fate to his label: low earner. Not everyone was self-motivated and self-disciplined. Not everyone could be their own boss or find niches to carve out opportunities with the Big Boss's blessing and support.

Your surrogate father figure backs you just like Sasuke's backs him. You have to see that. You see that right?

"It's done," his tone was stern, just avoiding the edge where it would cross over into scolding. Patronizing. "This is just how the Clan operates. He had a choice. He was given an option. He chose to elect it."

Some choice.

"Is that how you operate?" She asked with a low hum, agitated with beating around the bush. The heart of the matter remained. "Is this how you operate, Minato? Since you make more, your freedom is more important than someone who makes less?" The fire - the anger - in her belly spoke for her - through her, bleeding into her words; coating them.

"Sakura," he was frowning. He lifted his hand with clear intent she recognized, Sakura moved hers away - back towards herself. The hurt that flashed in his eyes momentarily sent a trickle of guilt through her gut. It would build. But right now she could pretend not to notice it. It was small enough. "He's a person. He has a life. He has a family. Do you think for a moment that if there was another way I wouldn't have pursued the path?"

Why are you okay with having someone else answer for your actions?

"Why isn't it you?" She pressed without entirely being sure to whom the question was directed towards. Her or him.

"I can't go away right now. Not with you being in danger."

So I'm the reason then?

"I never asked you to do any of this!" She threw up her hands, sitting up in her chair. Posture as rigid as her stance, defiant and confrontational. "Don't put this on me. Don't blame me!" She did not need help in this department. At all.

"I'm not blaming you," he said calmly, not reacting to her projected outburst. His face pulled together in what could be in disappointment if she was slightly less charged - if she was seeing things even a diopter more clearly for how they were in actuality and not in her head. "You asked for a reason - my reason - and I gave it to you," he said matter-of-factly in a voice that never fluctuated even once.

You're using me as an excuse…as a way out of taking accountability!

Her fingers clenched around each other. His eyes caught the movement. Like a bird of prey, he saw everything.

"You said I was safe," she lowered herself back down, all at once. The chair groaned against the kitchen floor. It was not an accusation but it came out sounding that way. Even if the heat of her flame was no longer charring the edges of her words.

I visited Mom. Hiro and Ino were here….

"For now," Minato sighed, running a hand through his hair. The coffee on his tongue was stale and bitter. She was safe for now as he said. But once the Uchiha handed in their fall men, it was open season on Sakura if one of them was not Masanori.

"You said that samples go missing…cases get thrown." The swallow was painful. The cost of free breathes was steep. She could not believe what she was about to say. "You were willing to do that for me. Why not for Haruto Nara? For his family. Can't you do something?" She asked him earnestly.

Can't you at least try?

For the longest time, only his stoic mask was her answer. He was studying her every bit as she was studying him. She wondered if his notes, his translation guide were more thorough or accurate than hers. Did he see the irony of her request? Did he think of her as a hypocrite? Was he simply too kind to tell her to get over it? Wake up kid, this is the real world kind of a moment - a harsh lesson on the state of reality.

"I'll look into it," he said at last.

She nodded her head, she did not have it in her to ask for clarification. She did not want to know. Sakura pushed back her chair, the legs scraped against the linoleum, screeching; rising to clear the table and wash the dishes. The hot water barely registered on her skin. But she was not too forgone to hear him pad away from the kitchen. Ceramic left on a gray mat on white marble.

An upholding of created space.

"This is cute," she pulled a hanger with a dangling dress from the rack. Gold. Short. Lined with sequences. The back was completely missing. Stunning.

"Where would you even wear it?" Sakura asked, only sparing it a glance. "Seems a little much for dinner even for you," she moved velvet hangers from right to left with a disinterested hand. Her green eyes peered over the metal clothing rack at the light foot traffic on the street. They were in the fashion district in Yuma. A necessity. Ino had reached the end of her understanding window and Sakura had jumped at the excuse. She told herself it was because she did not know when the opportunity would present itself to her again after things finished "publically sorting" themselves out. Also, she needed to buy a gift exchange present. Life - normalcy - had to start up again at some point.

"I was thinking for you," Ino tilted her head as she regarded the dress. "But now that you mention it, you don't have enough going on to fill it out in the front."

"I thought we were looking at coats. How did we end up in the dresses section?" Sakura's question was nearly carried off by her distractedness.

"What happened to your brown one? You had it for less than two months. What the hell did you do to it?" Ino shot back, tone clipping with huffy exasperation.

I got blood all over it.

And even if it had been dry cleaned - twice - she could not bring herself to wear it. Not with the eyes on her and not with the memories dyed into the soft wool. It was too bad. She really did like that coat.

If Mom ever went outside she could make use of it.

"I must have left it on the train," Sakura lied, not without guilt.

"I finally convince you to spend money on something and you go and lose it!" Ino threw her hands up in dramatic fashion. She was a theater kid growing up. And a ballerina so the flare of the dramatics was part of her DNA. The many distractions during childhood keep the loneliness of being an only child in the home at bay. "You are a child. You are so irresponsible. You are…."

Sakura stopped listening to Ino air out her list of lengthy grievances. She had started and she could sustain the so-called conversation by herself for hours, with no additional effort needed from her beyond her physical presence. Sakura adjusted the black bag on her shoulder - the one with scrape marks on the bottom and sides from where she dragged it against the concrete subway floors. They were tucked against her away from Ino's watchful gaze. Sakura did not want to give the woman an opportunity to gift her an expensive bag out of the goodness of her own heart - or to make space for a higher-end classic. Ino called it "being good" where she patted herself on the back for not giving into a whim, never mind the fact it was the only one out of ten that the statement held true for.

Green eyes clashed with a pair of gray of the saleswoman who had an expensive silk scarf around her neck. The woman's painted red lips pulled into a polite, friendly, professional smile. Sakura averted her gaze, ducking her head to pretend to inspect a sheer garment that was too long to be a shirt but too short to be a dress.

Can I be any more suspicious? She's going to think that I'm stealing!

But that was only the surface level of her anxiety. What if this building - this strip mall - was owned by the Uchiha? What if the woman herself was part of the Akatsuki? Her long jacket covered her arms completely. The fact had her palms sweaty, never mind the fact that it was the dead of winter. A sharp pain registered in her side. Sakura whirled around breath hitching and heart stammering. Her wide green eyes landed on Ino's completely unamused face.

"You know when you finally agreed to go to lunch and some light shopping with me, I thought you would be more involved in the process, Forehead. What the hell is the matter with you?" Ino's arms were crossed over her plaid tweed jacket that matched her mini-skirt. She looked more like a Barbie doll than Barbie herself. She was perfect. And frowning at her severely.

"I'm fine," Sakura said for the umpteenth time, and despite the repetition, it was no more believable than all the previous utterances.

Ino's hands were secure around her hips. She glared over Sakura's shoulder. The scurrying of high heels gave Sakura all the information she needed. Ino scared off the sales lady who had been sniffing around for her potential sales commission. There was no way she was Akatsuki. On the other hand, if she was…what did that say about Ino?

Ino would run a whole division. She'd be terrifyingly good at it.

Maybe Minato can add luxury goods to his inventory of offerings.

"That's it!" With a bruising grip, Ino clamped down on Sakura's elbow. The platinum blond stomped her stiletto-clad feet, dragging Sakura with her. Her baby-blue eyes were narrowed and her nostrils were flared. Pissed. She was pissed.

Let it be quick. Please, Universe!

"Ino," she began to protest weakly, meekly. But her voice never stood a chance against the leaves rustling in the wind both in the trees and the ones curled and brown underfoot, the click-clack of Ino's heels, and the idle chit-chat of the faces they passed. The woman continued her charge and Sakura had no choice but to comply.

The bridal store, the jewelry store, the macaron store, even Konan's third display-only boutique, they moved by each one without consideration of the careful displays in the painted dark-green brick store-fronts. Her arm had gone numb from lack of circulation. Ino released her. She wore a large smile that was painfully artificial. Sakura began to rub away the sting from her elbow.

"Hi!" Ino sang brightly in a voice two octaves higher than usual and nasal sounding. "Two hot fudge sundaes, please. Extra whipped cream. Like a mountain of the stuff. And chocolate sauce and sprinkles. On second thought, just fill the container for a single scoop with whipped cream. And two cherries on top, each."

The man with a white paper hat on his head looked at Ino funny. Sakura tried to cover her face with her hands, mortified.

"Did you get all that?" Ino blinked impassively, not understanding the issue. She tapped her black credit card on the beige-tiled order window. The grout was a light pink.

"Ma'am," the man - Daichi, if his nametag was anything to go off of - pointed a thick finger behind the blond. "There is a line."

Ino turned her head, eyes flat at the various looks and murmurs being targeted in their directions. Less than five people because it was the middle of the day in the middle of winter. The platinum blonde faced Daichi, impatient and with a huff. "I'll pay for all theirs. Just make ours first," she said loudly to which Sakura groaned. "Anyone have a problem with that?" She called out over her shoulder. She grinned haughtily when not a peep of dissent graced her ears. She slid the card over the window with a perfectly manicured hand that was free of her wool gloves that hung from her purse. "Extra whipped cream," she reminded him, tone grave with seriousness.

Daichi rolled his dark eyes heavenward before he muttered "I hate rich people," not so quietly under his breath. Sakura smiled timidly - not making eye contact - apologetically as she followed after Ino who had stalked off to find a table that met her standards, with a fist full of napkins shoved into the pockets of her red peacoat.

xXx

"You're certifiable," Sakura glared at her over the large mound of whipped cream, sprinkles, chocolate sauce, and two cherries. She shoved a spoonful of it into her mouth - expanding her cheeks like a squirrel.

"What?" Ino asked her in a bored manner, unabashed by what just happened minutes prior.

"You know what!" Her best friend hissed.

"You're still on that? You left a fat tip and in cash too. Daiki's totally over it." Baby-blue eyes moved from head to torso. "Unlike you," she gestured vaguely in Sakura's general direction. "You're upset. So stuff your face and spill your guts. You know you want to." Ino pressed her lips together in judgment for a moment. "Is it about your mom again?"

"Daichi, the guy's name was Daichi," Sakura corrected in what was a lost cause. Sakura swallowed another spoonful knowing that Ino was watching and labeling. Psychoanalyzing. Sakura opened her mouth. "Do you think I'm reactionary?" She asked in what was a foolish endeavor judging from the vacant eyes Ino regarded her with. "Pig?"

"Do you want the real answer or judgment-free support of your delusions?" The woman's clarifying question was more rhetorical than implied.

Thanks, Ino. Kick me while I'm down.

Sakura slumped back in her seat - her moodiness grew. She idly dug her heel into the concrete, pulverizing nothing into even more nothing. The metal chair was as uncomfortable as it was cold. Maybe her body was growing soft, pampered by her couch.

"In your defense, Mebuki does know exactly what buttons to press," Ino lowered her chin onto the back of her hand, her fingers curled into a loose fist. Relaxed. "She's not shy about it either. And anger is a secondary emotion. In your case, with your mom, it's rooted in years and years of her not respecting your boundaries or listening to you."

True but Mom's not the one I keep going off on.

"...and you're a people pleaser, not that you want to hear it from me. You bend yourself over backwards to make your mom happy which I don't think is possible because she refuses to process her trauma. If anyone shows you a modicum of kindness you latch on to them, putting their needs in front of your own. When Iruka broke his arm you drove him and from work every day - a whole twenty minutes out of your way - never mind the fact that he still had one perfectly good arm, all because he would bring you sandwiches from the vending machine when the ER got too crazy for you to step away from. And you're not even listening to me," Ino complained, eyeing the sundae in front of her. She chose not to engage with the intrusive thought that said to flung some whipped cream right at Sakura's face. That would surely get her attention. Good or bad. Instead, she waved her hand in front of Sakura. The charms on her bracelet - Sakura's gift to her after they were placed in the same hospital for their residency - jingled softly just as the pinkette blinked to.

"Sakura," Ino sighed, fixing the placement of the charms - correcting their outward orientation - to gather more patience and presumably understanding. "What's going on?"

Sakura raised her eyes until they were captured by a pair of baby blues - as expansive as a cloudless summer sky. "It's a lot," she warned halfheartedly, doing her best to provide an out even if all it was was a small sliver of window.

"So am I," Ino rolled her eyes with impatience that was not befitting a woman in her line of business. "Before I'm thirty, Sakura." Ino waved her hand hastily beckoning Sakura to pick up the pace. "Okay before I look it," Ino corrected at the deadpan stare being directed back at her.

Sakura inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with as much air as she could. Her mouth started to move. It did not stop moving even when Ino's jaw was unlatched and the maliciously compliant request for extra whipped cream all slid off her untouched sundae and dripped onto the concrete through the metal table grates.

"Ino?" Sakura called out her friend's name while dabbing the corner of her mouth for the sticky, sweet chocolate syrup that had collected here, with a wrinkly pulled out of her pocket napkin. "Are you alright?"

"You were interrogated?" Ino blinked. Rapidly. Excessively.

Sakura nodded her head, miserable. "They searched the clinic."

"They searched the clinic?" She repeated, outrage held back by a hair. The blonde leaned closer, her eyes scanning. Her voice was low. "Are you alright?"

No. And things have been weird…tense with Minato. I have no idea what to do there.

"Traumatized I think. It still doesn't feel completely real sometimes," Sakura admitted with a sigh. "It's a good thing you called to suggest-," threaten coming over, "-a meetup. I needed to get out of the apartment." She needed to get away from Minato. He clouded her judgment. It was terrifying just how much. She had not thought twice about lying to the police about him. Hell, not even once. It was her initial - instinctual - reaction.

"But they got the guy right?" Ino pressed, her hand reached over and around the sticky mess to find Sakura's.

I got the guy. He's in my house. He was reading Sumida when I left. The depressing ones. The ones from my collection. Being really subtle about it too.

Brooding. Minato was the silent brooding type it seemed. Her pride would not allow her to be the one to bring it up first.

"One of them. He turned himself in," she sighed wearily, tired of maintaining two conversation streams.

"I had no idea," Ino made a sympathetic sound. "Do you want to stay with me? Or I can stay over," she offered selflessly. It must really be a pitiful situation if Ino offered willingly - unprompted - to stay in Tani overnight. She claimed the water was radio-active and would wreak havoc on her hair and skin - aging her decades. "You shouldn't have to go through this alone."

He's there. Just there.

"I didn't know what to do. It all kind of happened and honestly, I'm glad I didn't drag you in with me," she smiled, twisting up inside knowing it was all a lie. She was trying so hard to pretend not to notice the silver-colored car across the street. A dark hood was pulled over bright red hair. "I'm okay," she said convincingly as she patted the back of her friend's hand.

"God," Ino crossed her arms over her chest. "And on top of it all Sasuke turned out to be an asshole?"

"The biggest," Sakura tapped her plastic spoon against her empty sundae cup. She coaxed Ino's untouched one closer to her, picking up the rate at which she pulled at the lack of protest from her companion. Sakura dug into the ice cream that had not melted given the cold.

"It's always the hot ones," Ino uttered sagely, betrayed. "No wonder you're no closer to coming back to work. What a nightmare. Can you imagine what people would have said if they served you the warrant at work?" Ino shook her head, pushing away a scenario that was too much - even for her. "There'd be no coming back from that."

"Tell me about it," Sakura grumbled, stuffing her mouth with a scowl, not even tasting the sweet treat. "He probably would have gotten a kick out of it."

"You should call Hatake," Ino stated without warning or shame. "It's the only thing he's good for."

Sakura coughed, hands plucking more of the napkins out of her pocket to slap across her mouth in a preventive measure to keep ice cream splatter from becoming airborne. A rectangular sprinkle stuck to the back of her throat, irritating it further.

"What the hell Pig?" She glared at her friend when her fit subsided. Her voice was raspy. Her throat hurt. Her eyes were watering and her face was red. Her life had all but flashed across her eyes. "That's not the answer to everything!"

"To this it is," Ino said with a frown, voice level, and expression of no-nonsense. "You just need some extra attention right now and you'll be right as rain. You know, get all of this out of your head even if only for a while."

"Is that what you tell your patients? Is this Dr. Yamanaka's professional advice? Get laid." Sakura asked with a snort. She pushed the sundae to the side, losing her appetite. "You're ripping them off," she mumbled unintelligibly under her breath because it made her feel better - marginally.

I'm good thanks. The last thing I need is a cop sniffing around me. Another one, I mean.

"Sometimes," Ino answered with a shrug, shameless - she would argue mature - in the wake of Sakura's reaction. "Why are you so bent out of shape anyway?" Ino asked, voice dipping as it filled with suspicion. "Why are you being weird?"

"I'm not!" Sakura said in a squeaking voice that was defensive. Even she could not argue the contrary. "I'm having a completely normal reaction to your comment."

"Right," Ino rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair with a stark lack of conviction. Sarcastic and biting as the rest of her. "You wouldn't know normal if it smacked you across the face." She sighed, picking at the insides of her nails for what was not there. "Are you still brooding about tall, blond, and handsome?" She asked innocently in contrast to the sharpness in her eyes.

Yes. Pathetically yes. I wish the name Haruto Nara meant nothing to me. Things were good before then…before Detective-Stick-Up-His-Ass.

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek until her left eye twitched which defeated the whole point of donning a poker face.

"Forehead," Ino groaned, throwing her beautifully done face in her hands. "You're hopeless," her voice was muffled but still coherent.

"I know," she could not fight the accusation - the judgment, the shame. "I'm bad at letting go. I'm bad at communicating. I'm bad at listening. I'm bad at being tranquil and mature and understanding. I'm bad at being open-minded. I'm bad at this."

I don't know how to go back.

"Forehead," Ino growled out but her voice softened toward the latter half of the word. "You are. You definitely are bad at a lot of things." Ino squeezed her fingers, earning herself a small smile. "But you're also really good at a lot of things. More things."

"Like?" Sakura asked with warmth coating her stomach, canceling out the chill in the air and her cold fingers.

"You're a good friend," Ino said with openness. "A really good friend. I should know because I'm rich. I could buy a whole armful of decent friends but I don't need them because I have you."

"Pig," Sakura regarded her, gobsmacked. "I don't know what to say."

"That's easy, say yes," Ino's smile turned predatory.

"Yes?" Sakura furrowed her brow. The warmth was continuing to climb and now it was practically scalding.

"To more shopping!" Ino clapped her hands. "Since you're such a good friend and all."

Sakura frowned. She had fallen for it. Ino's words of affection rarely came for free. She knew that. "I can't, I have to-"

"Where could you possibly have to be right now?" Ino cut her off with a flippant question. "You don't have to be at work, you don't have the okay to start up your clinic again from the station, you don't have any hobbies, you don't have a boyfriend or your dickfriend waiting on you, you only have one friend - me - and you've already seen your mom this week," Ino counted with her fingers. She wiggled six in a taunt. "I know you don't have a date, so tell me, Sakura where do you have to be right now? Hm?" Ino lowered her chin on the bridge constructed of fingers.

You don't have to call me out like that Ino. Or at the very least take so much enjoyment in it.

"But don't you?" Sakura deflected with more desperation than tact.

"I'll call it in. Say something came up. Karin can take my consultations. She owes me anyway for borrowing my dress. She returned it with a run in it. She then tried to gaslight me into thinking that it was always there and that I just didn't notice," Ino griped as she texted a message supposedly to Karin and Shizune - their supervisor. Ino looked up from her phone. Her eyes sparkled.

Oh no. I'm in for it now.

Sakura stiffened. She knew that look. That look meant trouble. No good, very bad trouble. All traces of doubt were eliminated when Ino's soft, glossy lips pulled into a smile. Cheshire cat. A bead of cold sweat rolled down Sakura's back.

xXx

"This is so unnecessary," she complained in a whiny voice as she stared at herself in the mirror with a face that was committed to being petulant and extremely unpleasant. Not that it mattered at all in the grand scheme of things.

"Turn around," Ino's hands were pulling and tugging impatiently, not deterred in the slightest by her less-than-cooperative-back-talking model.

"Hey," Sakura's shoulder hit the stall wall. The edge of the mirror dug into her skin. "Easy!" She huffed, straightening her hair back into place with a couple of shakes of her head. She frowned at her side profile. The dress fit her like a glove almost everywhere except the chest. The extra fabric bunched pathetically. Sitting much lower than it was designed to. "This one would look better on you."

"I don't need a revenge dress," Ino reminded her testily, her eyes moving up and down. "Turn around for me." As she said the words she was spinning Sakura by the shoulders. "Your ass looks amazing," Ino hummed in approval, eyes critiquing with strategy.

"I don't need a revenge dress." Especially not one so over-the-top slit on the right side, a bardot neckline. It was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. "Where would I even wear-"

"Hush, Sakura. I'm thinking," Ino's reflection was contemplative over Sakura's shoulder. "Leave it to you to not wear a bra again. It would have helped to have some structure. Can't believe you're still on that nonsense."

"The study out in Mizu-"

"What did I say?" Ino snapped. "I don't need to hear the study about how braless women's boobs sagged less than those who wore them. The whole parameters were bullshit. Some women," she gestured to herself. "Can't go prancing around without one. Their chests would have to have to be classified as Class Five weapons if that were the case."

Class One. Or Two if they were augmented or enhanced in any way.

Sakura corrected in her head. Bras were expensive and uncomfortable. So she avoided them where she could. In her defense, she did not think that she would be forced out of her thick coat and into a thin dress. But she supposed that was her fault for the oversight. But she kept that to herself because Ino was focused. The blonde was biting the tip of her nail. Eyes focused intently on the chest area. Sakura nearly brought her arms up to cover herself. Sakura felt about two feet tall. She had worked past this insecurity for the most part…but Ino was starting to make her realize she was not as accepting as she led herself to believe.

"We can work with this," the blonde exclaimed as her only warning before she whirled around the opened the thick sand-colored curtain with a flourish.

"I-Ino!" Sakura wrapped her arms and the bodice of the dress around her, preserving her modesty. Flashing the whole store was not on her list of to-do's for today or ever really.

"Don't you move, Forehead!" Ino called out from somewhere in the store, voice loud but distant. "I can fix it!"

"Honestly," the pinkette sighed in exasperation as she grabbed the curtain to close it, averting her gaze when it accidentally caught the sales attendant's. She turned in the mirror, ignoring her flushed cheeks. She observed as objectively as she could. "It's not terrible," she breathed as she admired the cut from the back. It did highlight certain assets.

I wonder if….

She all but jumped out of her skin when the curtain was yanked again. She eyed Ino through the mirror, her aghast expression accusatory. A deer in headlights. Ino had moved silently like a gazelle. Sakura did not even hear her heels.

"Wear this," Ino said breathlessly, handing her something nude-toned and with hooks. A lot of hooks. The blond moved the curtain back into place so they were no longer out in the open.

"What is that?" Sakura eyed it, dubiously. It seemed uncomfortable. Constrictive.

Like a corset or a medieval rib-crushing torture device.

"Magic!" Ino said with eyes glittering. "I haven't used one since I was like fifteen. So it didn't come to mind right away. This is the answer to everything, Forehead," Ino endorsed mightily right before she pulled down the neckline of the dress roughly toward Sakura's hips.

"I-Ino!" Sakura squeaked in indignation, face redder than the silk fabric.

"I'm going to convert you yet!" Ino laughed, more than a little deranged. And suddenly Sakura found herself preferring to be in the company of Detective Uchiha and Detective Domeki at that particular moment in time.

xXx

"Did you find everything okay?" The woman with shiny black hair smoothed close to her head asked pleasantly. An expensive red, white, and yellow ascot tied around her long slender neck.

"Does this come in any other colors?" Ino lowered the dress on the counter, not giving Sakura a chance to speak up from behind her.

"Oh, this is lovely," the woman said with a smile. She flipped the tag to read the numbers to enter into the computer. "What color family are we thinking?"

Ino glanced at Sakura who was perusing the front of the display cases under the register. The jewelry glittered.

"Red," the pinkette answered distractedly, not looking up. Sakura's palm was flat against the glass and she was at eye level with the second row, bent over.

The woman nodded her head. "We have it in a few options: burgundy, maroon, ruby, crimson…," She lifted her eyes from the screen to gauge interest before she listed off the remaining names.

Ino smirked as she leaned onto the counter. "Do you have it in floozy-red?" Ino asked; eyebrows arched haughtily. The two women exchanged a knowing look.

That's a thing?

Sakura inwardly balked.

"Candy Apple," the woman said with a distinguished nod. "It's our best seller. And it seems we have one more in this size and a couple a size up and down. Shall I pack it up for you today, ladies?"

"Oh yes, a size down," Ino threw the nude fabric on the counter too, sliding it to the woman. "And the magic-lift bra as well." She tapped her nails. The woman walked away to procure the dress. "It will fit you better," the blonde brushed off Sakura's look. "Trust me."

"Trust," Sakura said with a snort.

"Forehead, did you need heels? Ah," Ino shook her head, thinking better of it. "You can borrow a pair of mine. You still haven't given the Nobus back to me. Don't think I've forgotten."

"I already gave them back," Sakura said with a sigh as she lowered her purse to the counter to pull out her wallet. It would weep today just as she would when the statement came in. "You gave them to Karin for the fundraiser, remember?" The one that was months ago.

Ino's lip curled in real anger. Baby-blue eyes watched disinterestedly as the woman began to fold and package the dress in a white box filled with red, crinkly tissue paper.

"She's lost privileges to my closet. What else did she take and not give back?" Ino asked her without a glance back.

"Um," Sakura pressed her lips together. "Your brown handbag with the gold chain. Your purple scarf. Your sunglasses? The hexagon ones," she listed because she wanted no part in being blamed if and when Ino suddenly remembered they existed and did not find them in one of her master-bedroom-sized closets. She had five. One for each season and one just for shoes. She had an automated shoe rotational storage - it maximized space because otherwise, Ino would need three more closets to display her inventory. With each item listed, remembrance hit Ino. By the time Sakura was done her shoulders were moving up and down. Ino laughed. It made Sakura's blood run cold. She was on her phone.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked her with traces of guilt.

I should have talked to Karin myself. But then again…she did tell everyone I was probably getting work done out in Kumo.

"Nothing," Ino said innocently, voice saccharine sweet. "Just planning a lunch date with my dear friend Karin."

We're even now, Karin. I forgive you.

Maybe Karin would find it in her heart to forgive Sakura.

"God help her," Sakura murmured, watching the woman put her purchases in a white bag with elegant gold thread of the boutique's initials. You would think with the prices they charged they could afford to stitch the whole name.

"Will that be all?" The sales associate asked again. Her bright red nails gleamed under the canned lights. Shiny.

"Can I see something?" Sakura asked politely, drawing Ino's attention from her rage-filled phone tapping.

"Of course," the woman said with a polite, professional smile. She procured keys from her pocket. "What would you like to see?"

"Sakura, have you seen this message on the hospital's online bulletin board that was just posted?" Ino tilted her phone side to side trying to communicate with Sakura discreetly. This was not where Ino got her jewelry from. Only one store in all of Yuma met Ino's standard and this was decidedly not it.

"These right here," the pinkette answered the woman's question ignoring Ino's inquiry. She tapped the glass, breath fogging it slightly.

"Cufflinks?" Ino asked, phone still in hand and her bag held in the crook of her elbow. "Who are you looking at cufflinks for? That's way too specific for the gift exchange." Not to mention expensive.

Sakura traced the smooth edges of the square platinum. They were filled with blue sapphire. They sat against black velvet in an emerald box. They were fancy without being flashy or obnoxious. Classy. They were classy.

They're perfect.

"I'll take them," she closed the lid and tapped the box once with decisiveness before sliding it toward the woman.

"Certainly," the woman gathered the box in her hands. "You have excellent taste."

And you're already counting your sales commission.

Sakura chuckled out of politeness. She pulled out her card pointedly ignoring Ino's glare - the glare that demanded Sakura explain right this instant. Instead, Sakura placed her card on the rich oak tray. It was when she had signed what she needed to sign and her purchases were wrapped and in hand that she turned to Ino.

"It's not for the gift exchange," Sakura explained without doing so. "Power of manifestation right?" Sakura asked with a wry smile, knowing full well the fire that was burning in Ino. "Come on, I need a pair of earrings to go with this dress. And we still need to pick something up for the work thing."

Ino sorted, letting Sakura loop her arm with hers. "No one is going to be looking at your face in that dress."

"Point taken," Sakura said with an eye roll. "Let's get garlic fries then. My treat." To that, Ino did not argue. Because garlic fries did not count when counting calories - it was basically a vegetable.

xXx

She was surprised that the lights were on; that he was there. Sakura lowered the bags from her arms and eventually set them down using her fingertips. She had gone a little overboard. A tradition when shopping with Ino. Either she kept her wallet sealed and did not buy anything or she was left with a monthly statement in hand and a question on her mind: why? It was like she was possessed.

But on a positive note, I found the perfect generic present.

A portable, plug-in cup or mug warmer that had a backup battery life of two hours. It would be appreciated, she was sure.

"I'm home," she said as she slipped out of her ankle boots, using a hand to stabilize her on the wall when she had unzipped them from the back. The words felt as strange to hear as they were to say.

"Welcome, back," Minato answered with hints of warmth that she might have read into. Her laptop was open on a cushion over his lap. She had his full attention. "You were gone for a while."

Not really the quick lunch I had advertised.

"Yeah," she set her shoes to join the others - next to his loafers - breaking eye contact with him momentarily. "Time got away from us." She shrugged out of her coat, putting it on the coat rack. "Did you eat?"

I hope you didn't wait for me.

She should have texted but Ino would have noticed. But there was also the fact that she and Minato did not text. The first time she had tried he gave her a mini-stroke when he called back instead, claiming it was just easier to talk over a call. So she rarely bothered. And in all truth, she did not try that hard. She figured Sasori would have told him. If she was able to sneak Sasori some donuts and cake slices, she could have texted Minato.

"I managed."

Weird. He's being weird even by our new standards.

She noticed that he had headphones in his ears. He had been listening to something. "How was your day?" She remained by the door as if tethered to it with a very short restraint, she pulled the edges of her sleeve down as low as they would go. They fell well short of swallowing her hands.

"Good," he smiled. It did not quite reach his eyes. "I tried that noodle recipe."

"I thought I smelled garlic," she sniffed the air for good measure. "Smells like a success," she said conversationally and without surprise. Minato was quite the cook. The nagging in the back of mind, gnawing away at her, moved to the forefront. Thoughts of conversation of trying it out together filled her mind. Her eyes widened. "Oh my God." She covered her mouth. Today. They were supposed to try it out today. They had made plans under the tapestry of his star-print fort. He would go shopping for the ingredients. They would cook them together. Before the tension since Haruto Nara's arrest - the disarray. "The noodles!"

"Sakura, it's okay."

She would have believed it if he had looked remotely in her direction when he claimed such things.

After I hyped them up too! And asked for them.

"Minato," she heard something in her voice she was not accustomed to hearing. The pit of her stomach had expanded to swallow the whole thing. "I'm sorry."

For being selfish. For forgetting.

"Sakura," he set her closed computer aside. He was standing from his seat but he did not move closer - just like her. "It's okay. It's fine. Did you have fun with Ino?"

She nodded her head. It was fun. But she had left fun on the other side of the door.

All faults, shortcomings,

wiped with hands with kind patience-

Strive toward your me.

With steps that were becoming more and more steady with each iteration, she walked to the kitchen. She could feel his eyes and practically read the question from the air. She first opened a drawer and fished out a fork. She moved to the fridge, finding the new storage container rather easily. It stood out. A beacon for her shame and guilt. She closed the door and pulled herself a chair. She sat cross-legged in that chair and began to tuck in all while Minato watched her owlishly. His blue eyes were so wide.

"This is really good," she said through a grimace. Her stomach complained that it did not have any room but she kept chewing. She was nothing if not stubborn. "Better than I remember," she insisted.

"Sakura," Minato's toes were just at the edge of the kitchen. "You don't have to."

"I want to," she countered adamantly, breathing deeply out before she brought another forkful to her mouth. She was no amateur. She was not going to fill up (further) on empty air. She took her time chewing in a futile expectation that by the time she was done, there would be more room. "You toasted the sesame seeds," she breathed her appreciation, choosing to ignore the way it sounded like a moan. He also made it extra peanut buttery just like she had mentioned preferring it. With lots and lots of garlic. "So good," she gushed, praying tears did not streak down her face. "You want some? Round two?" She offered with palpable hope.

She bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out in relief when he trudged forward. His bare feet slapped against the linoleum. The drawer groaned before opening. The metalware did not clack at all as he pulled out a pair of chopsticks. She sighed when he finally came to sit across from her. She moved the noodles to the center. No docileness was found as he busied himself with helping her. He chewed.

"They might actually taste better cold," he admitted with surprise, holding a shrimp at the ends of his sticks.

She laughed, pushing out air. "Maybe the company has something to do with it?" She asked in a voice dangerously close to teasing. The butterflies in her stomach became hornets at the hardening of his face. Subtle but noticeable. "What's wrong?" She asked him, fork lowered to the table and the noodles threatened to come back up.

"Sasuke came by the clinic. He left his card. Slipped it through the door." Minato procured said card from his pocket. He tapped the text written in ink, in particular before sliding it over to her.

Call me.

"I'll get the vodka," Sakura was already halfway to the cabinet where she kept the glasses.

Minato rose to go to the fridge where he had placed a new bottle hours ago.

"I didn't touch it," she said into the dark room just as she stepped inside of the open door. Her fingers were still around the key in the lock. She found the light switch. They flickered and a low electrical hum reverberated before they turned on in earnest. Stable.

"This place is darker than a tattoo parlor," Sasuke noted dryly over her shoulder.

She made no comment on the interesting comparison on accident or a slip-up that revealed he did his homework. She stepped closer to the door to allow him to enter, which he did. She closed it behind him gently.

"You weren't kidding," Sasuke walked leisurely to the camera sitting on the middle chair. His eyes kept scanning the room. His head turned in all four directions to facilitate the most coverage of ground. He grabbed the camera. With a flick of his thumb, he turned it on and began to lazily check the contents of the memory card. "I can finally tell Shiranui to stop clenching his ass."

Lovely.

"Happy to help," she could not hold back the sarcastic words but she contained an eye-roll so she figured it was not a total wash. Her jade-colored irises migrated to the door that they had entered with not much subtly. "If there's nothing else…," she let her voice trail off. He was a detective. Surely he could figure it out.

"I missed you yesterday. Where were you?"

She blinked but beyond that, she did not let it show just how much his question caught her off guard with the interestingly worded statement and subsequent question. "For the record?" She raised a brow and crossed her arms over her thick purple top. "Didn't you get the guy?"

Sasuke smirked, his dark eyes shiny with amusement. "Not for the record. And allegedly. We allegedly got the guy."

She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, worry bled into the cracks and lines of her face.

"You've been cleared," Sasuke tapped his fingers against the lens cap. "Can't say I'm surprised."

You're in control. Don't let him mess with your head. Calm. Calm people control rooms.

"Oh?" She put forth her best Ino impression. Nothing shook the blonde. Sakura believed that in her bones. Hot juicy gossip notwithstanding.

"You're smart," the corner of Sasuke's mouth rose. "Too smart to get involved in such a mess. Akatsuki is bad news."

"I'll take your word for it," she countered with disinterest, forgetting for the briefest of moments those were her words that he threw back. The damage was done. She could not take them back so she compensated with bravado. The thought of throwing her hair over her shoulder crossed her mind. It was what Ino would do.

"You're kind. You care about your neighbors," he continued - establishing a pattern that she did not care for. "You have instincts that protect. I saw it myself."

"You reached for your gun on purpose?" She asked out loud, forgetting that it was not in her head.

Was it a test too? You used Ms. Honda as a prop?

"I was doing my due diligence," Sasuke answered without truly doing so. "A follow-up of sorts."

To my claims of reacting on instinct when I ran down the stairs.

With just a handful of words, he had her mentally stumbling. She rolled back in her head the conversation - the interrogation. The first outside her door and the second inside her clinic. Her guard could not be pulled more up. The only challenge was to keep it off her face and mannerisms just how shaken up she was.

He's sharper than I gave him credit for. He might be more of a genius than an asshole.

Quite the feat but no one asked her.

"I do feel a little bad."

She looked away from his smug face. If she stared longer than seconds at a time, the risk of punching his teeth in, ran high. He was just so arrogant.

And hot.

Okay, so many she took the channeling Ino exercise a little too far.

"For?" She prompted, eager to get back upstairs to her life. Hiro was slated to come over in a bit. Minato planned on still being out during that time. He promised to bring back a box of brownie mix for an after-dinner snack. And that was the only thing keeping her going.

I should text him to buy some walnuts too. Or to just get the box that comes with walnuts…does he like walnuts?

"Not calling you."

She stared at him, surprised. "For the camera? It's fine. I didn't even notice it was here. I haven't had anyone need the clinic since we came down here last." That was a lie. She had noticed the camera immediately. In her paranoia that it might be recording or it was bugged, she left it downstairs in the clinic without an additional word. It was a relief that Minato shared her reservations when he said she had done the right thing. She felt slightly less crazy for thinking the way she did.

"Before then," Sasuke corrected her misconception with a shake of his head. "You're not half bad looking."

Excuse you?

"I'm sorry?" Came the more appropriate response even if the tone was not all that different.

"Don't be," he was smirking at her again. Full of arrogance and maybe even a little charm - if she was drunk, desperate, or her cycle had lined up in the worst possible way. "I don't make the same mistakes twice."

What?

Her fingers curled as a stress response. The blood in her veins congealed. Something - everything - felt off. Wrong. So she did what she always did, she waited for more information.

"Let me take you to dinner," his smoothly uttered words in a low voice like velvet had her sputtering like an end-of-life engine.

Like a d-da-date?

"I..is..w-wouldn't that be a conflict of i-in-interest?" She struggled through her question, face aflame with embarrassment because what the hell? What was she supposed to do with this?

"How could it be?" He asked with a cocked brow.

Not even a week ago you were ready to arrest me.

"I-," she could not believe what she was hearing. "Wasn't I just a suspect?" She asked, confused as if she imagined the whole thing like a horrible fever dream.

Maybe I did get shot…down at the under level. Maybe I've been in an elaborate coma this whole time!

She could only hope because that made more sense than what was currently transpiring. She stopped herself from pinching her cheek.

"You were never a suspect, Sakura."

She was too stunned to call him out on his overt familiarity all of a sudden. "Then what was all this?" She waved her hands vaguely at everything in the room. "If not the suspect treatment?"

Was it just what you call your charm, you deranged psycho?

"It was just a tactic to encourage you to be more forthcoming," Sasuke opened the lid of a random container. He peered inside, sniffing. So unbothered by just how bothered she was. "Nothing personal."

Sakura scoffed, unable to think of anything more intelligent or witty to throw back at him. It felt personal, very personal. It was her life. What was more personal than that? She stomped over, snatched the lid from between his fingers, and slammed the metal lid back on the glass container all while glaring at him.

"No warrant, no touching," she warned for the first and last time, teeth clenched and eyes hard.

The bastard had the audacity to chuckle. Light and soft. Breathy. Her stomach turned at the realization of just how close he was. She could smell his cologne.

"I think we got off on the wrong foot," Sasuke claimed, resting a palm on her counter and leaning toward her so slightly that she could not even call him out on it. It was negligible, the way he pushed the envelope. Sakura's hand over the container cap shook. The camera was somewhere behind her. "I'll make it up to you." He bore into her soul with his dark, dark eyes. Almond-shaped. Intelligent. Obsidian. Reflective. Endless. Consuming. "Show you a different kind of treatment." He smirked, his gaze intensifying.

Sakura swallowed. Audibly. There was no way, no world, in which he did not hear. The smug curl of his lip confirmed her newly discovered worst nightmare.

xXx

Her legs were shaking and the tremors were felt all the way in her fingertips. She fumbled with the door. The warm light of her kitchen greeted her. He was there. Close but not crowding. Worry on his face. Her shakiness showed up as the divet between his brows and the frown on his face.

"Are you alright?" He asked her, unable to hold back the question any longer. Arms reaching but not quite arriving; leaving the decision either to her or exigent circumstances - such as preventing her from falling on her face if she passed out, which in all honesty was tempting. "What happened?" He spoke again without his usual patience. Her silence was unnerving him. "Sakura," he called out her name.

She blinked. She licked her lips. Her throat was so, so, so dry. She did not know how that happened.

Water.

"What did he do?" There was an accusation in his question. "Did he threaten you?" His voice was cold, low. A chill went down her spine, jolting her senses just enough to awaken.

"Dinner."

"Are you hungry?" Minato asked her bewildered. They had lunch two hours ago. Not that it mattered. She had hardly eaten. He halted his movements to arrange a plate at the shake of her head.

"Dinner," she repeated, looking at him, blinking slowly - perturbed. "He asked me to dinner," her voice was so unsure - unsteady.

"Dinner?" He stood there unconvinced he heard her right even if he had been reading her lips. Minato's frown grew in direct proportion to his confusion. "He asked you to dinner?"

Sakura nodded her head mutely. Heavy. She was looking past him. "Without the badge…. No detective, no doctor. Just Sasuke. Just Sakura. Just Sasuke and Sakura," she repeated Sasuke's words to Minato; words she did not fully understand the significance of.

"What," he paused, lips pressing together briefly. He gathered more than just thought. "What did you say?"

She grabbed the back of the chair. The upholstery absorbed the sweat from her palm. "I said yes," she said, staring at the space between their feet. Toes pointed right at the other.

"You said yes?"

She nodded her head. "I said yes." She sank into the seat, unable to support herself anymore. Cheek rested against the cold marble. Pink lashes fluttered heavily. Spent.

The video played in front of the screen for his eyes. The audio played in headphones for his ears. He sat there on the printed accent chair unmoving beyond blinking. Stewing, he was stewing. Time has gone by so slowly since Sasuke left yesterday. Too slowly. But not slowly enough because the day he was dreading since learning of it was here. The time was here. And he was doing all he could to pretend that was not the case. Hence the distraction. But the documentary on a privately funded charity - the Innocence Initiative - that fought cases for those who they believed to be wrongfully convicted, hardly could keep his interest.

She had said yes. She had said yes to dinner with detective - no just - Sasuke Uchiha. All the while the inside of his mind screamed - pleaded silently for her to tell him what he longed to hear - at her to say no when he posed the question with desperation that he kept back. She said yes. She had accepted.

Empty space beside,

Unspoken explication-

Your echo fades, slow.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pushing Sumida into the furthest corners of his mind. The strain was starting to be too much. He lowered the laptop to the coffee table but turned up the volume. His mind was playing tricks on him. He could hear Sakura calling his name. Why would she be calling his name now? When she was getting ready - for hours - to interact and entertain someone else entirely.

Sasuke.

She was getting ready, preened, to go to dinner with the son of his rival clan head, Fugaku's youngest and consequently his biggest headache. He knew, somewhere deep down, that he had no right to feel the way he did but knowing and experiencing were two different things and he was at odds. He felt betrayed somehow. And that added to his conflict - guilt. She would not be in this situation if it were not for him.

Or would she? How casually she had mentioned her mother had given her Sasuke's number over a year ago this morning over breakfast - offhandedly even as if it were neither important nor relevant. Maybe not to her but to him, it was. It was both. Why did she not reach out to Sasuke sooner? Before all this, Sakura was in the dark about the underbelly of the Uchiha Clan - the true faces they hid under shiny exteriors with pale skin, delicate symmetric features, and dark thick hair. Sasuke was everything most were looking for. He was a graduate of a good university. He had a stable job. He was from money. He was from a traditional background and prescribed to traditional values. He was confident. He was competent. He was capable. He was smart. He was handsome. He knew how to carry himself. He was a catch - the total package. His mug was on just about every trashy magazine that ranked the most eligible bachelors of Konoha. He was sought after. He had no shortage of options. He had a fan club for crying out loud. He was something Minato could never be. Clean. Sasuke was clean. As clean as anyone born in a clan in Konoha could be.

She's not a bad texter. I'm the bad texter.

Shika was too lazy to carry his phone with him half the time, much less text. Who did Minato have to text? He never developed the habit when everyone else was learning it. It was embarrassing to admit that he was well behind the times. He did not understand the lexicon. And he could write a book on how emojis confused him. Why did they have so many meanings? Hidden meanings? Who thought that was a good idea? And so much was lost without the aid of tone. Something innocent and innocuous to the sender could be interpreted in so many different ways by the receiver. Texting was a waste of time. And then there were the spoofing technologies. Text messages could not be trusted. Anyone could pretend to be anyone else after spending as little as fifteen ryo. A phone call was much more direct. A phone call was harder to spoof. Minato did not text if he could help it. But Sakura texted throughout the day. She texted her mother. She texted Ino. She presumably texted other people - Amaya, Hiro, Detective Hatake (even if that was in the past, he was not clear exactly), maybe even Ms. Honda's son. Why did she not text Sasuke?

Could he - Minato - have been the reason? Minato stood up. He paced from one end of the rug to the other. Head bowed. Questions like that were precisely what were feeding into his torment. He was doing it to himself. He was dying of thirst while his mind - his imagination - watched Sasuke drown.

What if this was more than just what he - and Domeki for what it was worth - believed it to be? What if Sasuke was actually interested in Sakura…romantically? What then? The line between love and hate was thin. Hate was not the opposite of love - indifference was. And Sakura was far from indifferent to detective Sasuke Uchiha. She was firmly on the side of disdain during their first meeting. It was no secret. But the second time he had no purview on the interaction beyond what Sakura told him. Nor the third. What if they were texting? Sakura and Sasuke?

Sakura and Sasuke.

His stomach twisted violently at the thought, clenching.

"Minato!"

He jerked his head up. His eyes almost popped out of his head, just managing to avoid swallowing his tongue - not through lack of effort but more on account of it being impossible. "Sakura!"

She winched, covering her ear closest to him with a flat palm. "Why are you shouting?" She shouted at him.

"What?" He furrowed his brow.

Sakura rolled her eyes. She pointed to her ear while maintaining aggressive eye contact. She barely blinked. Dumbly, without thinking, he brought his hands to his ears. He felt plastic. He pulled the buds from them. His throat was dry. "Everything okay?" He asked, feeling incredibly stupid.

Clearly, it was not. He had eyes. She was staring at him flushed. Cheeks pink, eyelids sparkling with glitter, and lashes curled and coated with mascara. Her lips were more brown than usual but somehow still overall pink. Pouty. Enticing but not an open invitation either. She was holding the red dress to her - covering her chest. Sakura spun around and all but shoved her rear against his front.

Um….

"I'm late! I need you to zip me up," she spoke quickly with short, hurried words. "I was calling you from the room for like three minutes," she added with agitation.

"Sorry, I had my headphones in," he explained lamely as if she did not very well point it out to him (literally) much less see; blinking rapidly, still stunned. Still holding the headphones in his growing sweaty palm. He raised his eyes from the curve of her butt. The dress hugged her in a very flattering fit. He swallowed when he remembered there was a reason she was here in front of him and not a mirror. A mirror did not have arms that were connected to hands - hands with fingers. Fingers that she needed for a very specific purpose. His hands shook slightly as he found the tiny red zipper against her creamy smooth skin. "I don't understand," he said after clearing his throat.

"How to work a zipper?" She asked him, glancing over her shoulder unimpressed that her back was still exposed despite her stressing how pressing time was.

"Why are you going," Minato grumbled barely above a whisper. He inhaled deeply, subtly. She smelled amazing. Addicting. Different than usual and not in a bad way. Elevated. Everything about her now was elevated and heightened. He moved the zipper up in the opposite direction of what it should have been.

"He might give up information," Sakura answered, facing away, voice distant - distracted.

Willingly? Unlikely.

Sasuke was a detective. He was smart. If anyone was going to be interrogated it was her. But he did not have it in him to tell her outright. It would be a successful night if the only person hurt was just him. Just the one.

"We still don't know much about the Uchiha right? The one we saw?" She asked him, humming slightly, flattening the fabric of the dress to her chest. "Careful," she inhaled sharply when the zipper caught around her ribs. "I don't have a backup dress. Let me hold my breath. I knew I shouldn't have let Ino talk me into going a size down. I won't be able to eat anything!" Sakura sucked in air loudly. "Okay," she instructed with her breath held. "Now."

Minato slid up her zip past the clasp of her bra all the way until there was no more track left. His eyes rose to the inches of skin just out in the open. Her hair was gathered in a hairstyle that was more complicated than the typical buns she wore around the house.

"Did you get the hook?" She asked, head tilted down slightly exposing the shiny gold clasp and the dangling end of a chain at her nape.

He shook his. He stepped closer, back arched. His breath hit her skin. He found the small metal hook, also red. With his face centimeters from her back, he searched for the other end for the hook to secure into. A small red loop. Calloused fingers danced, warm and deliberate to join the two, lowering down to the straps that had fallen from her shoulders.

"They're supposed to be like that," her hand - warm - covered his, sending jolts of electricity to his elbows. She turned around slowly. "Do I look alright?" She asked him with her head cocked to the side, and a bright smile on her face. Dazzling.

"You look…," he licked his lips, starstruck, breath stagnant in his throat because he forgot to finish drawing it in. His eyes focused intently on the part of her that was the most surprising. He blinked slowly not wanting to be without them in his gaze for any longer than strictly necessary on a fundamentally functional level. It was a puzzle - a mystery - he was trying to solve. A real thought-provoking exercise. A retrospection on what he thought he knew.

Eyes knew not beauty,

Until your light appeared bright—

Now the world holds still.

She was almost spilling out of the dress. And that confused him - pleasantly. Very pleasantly. She was not the most endowed woman he had been with - not by far. She was a handful - if he was being generous - which was enough. She more than made up for it elsewhere with everything else she brought to the table. She was smart. She was kind. She was funny. She was beautiful. She was strong. She had pink hair and the most beautiful, expressive eyes he had ever seen. Eyes that reflected his face when he was lucky enough for her to allow him that close of an audience. She had really nice legs. She had a butt that…. She had a lot going for her. But now, as he looked at her chest she was considerably more than what he expected. And all he could think was how.

How did this happen?

"Perfect," Sakura was grinning - not that he registered much like he did not realize he never finished his compliment. "I owe Pig a lunch." Her hand went to her ear. "I do feel naked without earrings, do you think I need them?"

She half turned so she could gaze at her reflection in the brass mirror by the console table where she kept her keys, giving him the side view - a very nice view of both the front and back. He had no spare headspace to worry about coming across as a creep. She had used the word naked. It had to be deliberate.

She never wore makeup for me.

The thought came to mind and his bottom lip moved marginally past his top. He finally had closed his open mouth. She did not comment as she adjusted her hair. Strands framed her face, softening the look. She was amazing. She was beautiful. He wanted to touch her. To free her from the dress that did not allow her to draw in a complete breath. They had food at home. She could eat here and ask him questions if she were so inclined. He would even feed her - happily - so she did not need to lift a finger that might ruin the perfect pink manicure she had come back with after her time with Ino.

"It's perfect," Minato said gruffly, catching the surprise on her face. His gaze locked with the delicate necklace looped around her neck twice. The first loop was basically a choker. The end of a very long gold chain disappeared under her dress, a path to lead the eye. "You look perfect."

"Thank you," she beamed at him through the mirror. "I can't believe that I'm going to Sage," she gushed with what seemed like genuine excitement.

Excitement for someone else.

A bucket of ice water was dropped on him. An even bigger shock than the taunting red dress.

"Ino is going to lose her mind. She's been trying to get a reservation for months. Oh!" Sakura patted her front in a momentary relapse in memory, forgetting she did not have pockets or room for anything else. "Mind taking a picture of me?" She asked him with green eyes under red shimmering hoods. They popped even more against the sharp contrast. She looked around the room for something, hurried in her movements. She walked to the sofa where he noticed a small red clutch - the same color as her dress - was waiting. She opened it, holding out her phone for him. He transferred the headphones to his pocket, finger clammy before taking it from her. "Near the mantle?" She asked, already walking there.

Minato stared at her through the screen. The brick was competing against the dress. He shook his head. His eyes landed on the green tree in the corner of the room. "The plant," he pointed. "It will be a good contrast."

"You're a genius," Sakura moved over to the thin brown tree with wide green leaves. The pot was white and porcelain. She posed with one leg slightly bent, her shoulder angled. She smiled. He stood there enchanted. "Did you get it?" She asked with a large strained smile after a couple of seconds of him not moving.

He tapped the screen twice quickly. "Got it," he passed her the phone.

"Thank you!" She scurried back to her clutch, putting her phone in there not bothering to check the photos. She leaned, avoiding bending for something by the arm of the couch, struggling.

"Let me," he kneeled, forcing her to perch back on the armrest. He straightened the first shoe - black and strappy - before guiding her foot into it. Her baby-pink toenails slipped to the front. "You'll be able to drive in these?"

"I've done it before," her voice called out from above him. "It was such a good call to fill up the tank yesterday. I would be even more late had you not." He did not want her to stand stagnant in places too long - especially gas stations - for safety reasons. "I don't know what I would do without you, Minato."

"Call Ino," he said out of self-preservation. He did not allow himself to absorb her words. "Or wear something more sensible."

"Like my slippers?" She asked with a laugh that went silent when his fingertips grazed the inside of her ankle in purely unjustified contact. "I need the heels. He's tall."

He's not that tall.

He was guessing. It was hard to gauge things like height from the distorted fish-eye view of the door's view hole. Sasuke seemed around his older brother's height, if not a little bit shorter.

"Don't overindulge especially if you're nervous, it won't help," his advice slipped out of concern born from a scenario his brain just thought up: her heel catching in a sewer grate and Sakura with a broken ankle spilled on the sidewalk for anyone to take advantage of. Or more likely, Sasuke pounced on something she said causing it to all come apart.

"I know," she agreed with a small sigh. "I'm going to stay away from sake." It hit her harder than tequila. She knew her limitations as she grew more frank - honest - when she drank. She said what she was actually thinking after about three and a half shots. That was the amount of hard alcohol needed to temporarily disable her stingy filter. She - they - could not afford that. "You'll be around?" She asked with more noticeable nervousness.

"You won't even know I'm there." He secured the strap through the buckle. He was in no hurry to rise. "If you get a bad hit in any way, get out of there. Don't worry about being rude."

"I know," she smiled softly. "I'll be good. I'll be safe." She patted his shoulder in consolation. "I really am late, Minato."

"You're worth the wait," he said with conviction. He found it hard - if not impossible - to believe anyone could harbor a grudge against her for being late once she made her entrance. Especially if she smiled.

She giggled, cheeks turning pinker only adding to the very pretty image. "Fingers crossed that he agrees."

He rose to his feet, taking her hand and helping her to hers. The top of her head was level with his nose. He lowered his gaze just not too much lest he be distracted. Because her plan, the one he had been unsure of, would work and that too surprisingly effectively. Because he was sure that in that dress, looking the way she did, she could get any answers out of any man who was straight. He was sure of it.

She moved to the door. He followed after her, holding out her red coat for her to slip into. She lined and buttoned all the buttons. While his imagination ran amuck in his head, she plucked her keys from the bowl and waved at him. He heard her heels clicking as he watched her descend the stairs carefully through the peephole. Sasuke did not know what was awaiting him under that bulky, shapeless red coat.

"At least it's not a trenchcoat," he muttered under his breath darkly, tugging at his hair. He closed the door of the hallway bathroom. The tap turned on.

xXx

"He didn't even bring her flowers," Minato griped, peering through binoculars he had bought from a store earlier this morning. "I never gave her flowers," he practically chided himself. It was partially his fault. Maybe even majorly. They never talked about it. What this - they were. He had been passive, waiting for her to bring it up on her own. Only she never did. So it just went unaddressed.

For too long. A look where it got me.

He never had to pursue a woman before. He never had to think about it when he finally started having any interest. Shika ragged him for being a late bloomer. Minato supposed he was right. He was a bit of a loser growing up. A wallflower and having Shika - the kid who preferred the company of puffy, indiscriminate faces in the clouds to actual people - as his best friend really did him no favors. Minato did not have his first kiss until he was eighteen and that had not been entirely through his own doing. He was far from smooth in the beginning anyway. Back when he actually worried - inwardly, he dared not breathe his concerns to another soul, Aunt Yoshi was long gone - about making an effort - any effort.

A smile and a hello had served him well in the past for his purposes - for what he was after; apathetic to the prospect of the opposite sex as much as he was to life; after he grew into his ears and filled out his once lanky frame with purposeful muscle. After his glow-up in what society deemed attractive. But now, this was different. A smile and a hello was not enough. Not nearly enough.

We haven't even held hands.

What should have been one of the earlier steps - milestones - they completely forewent all together. Their fingers never rested interlaced, palm to palm with the peace of mind that came from knowing - experiencing - stability. Routine, they did not have the comfort of routine. They did not have security. They were moving backward - they did things woefully out of order. They jumped straight into it without meaningful, purposeful, sustainable steps. A sprint and not a marathon; that was the race they were running. That was not the race he wanted to run, even if he was more suited for it - built for it. The end goal - ultimate destination - was different. He was reaching for something a little harder to breach and with a more lasting impact - at least he had rising aspirations of such.

What is sought, is longed,

Soft breaths of endless promise-

Home in your heartbeats.

His father died before he could get advice from him. Because while Minato did not remember much, he knew in his bones that his father knew how to treat his mother right. They - from what Shikaku and Yoshino told him along with his fuzzy memories - were never far from one another. Always touching. Always close. Always whole in the presence of one another. Minato could see the love his mother held for his father in all the pictures of them together. She was enamored. It was in her sparkling baby-blue eyes, in her wide smile. His mother adored his father. No one else existed in her world other than Naoto and then him when he came along. That kind of look - devotion - did not just happen. His father did the work to win not just her over but her clan - he had asked for blessings after all. Work that Minato did not do.

Yoshino and Shikaku were surprisingly tender, much to Shikamaru's chagrin. They were more muted in what he remembered of their connection. He did not recall them kissing once in front of him or Shika or anyone. They relied less on words and touch and more on acts. Shikaku would prune and fertilize her camellias so that their blooms would be maximized in both yield and length. Yoshino's smile and good mood would be all the thanks the man needed. It was as if he walked on air. Yoshino picked out and set his clothes every morning - ironed. Her devotion was through her actions: the food she cooked him, the newspaper she had ready, and the coffee brewed to his preference. The little things. They would smile softly at each other - sometimes with just their eyes - and the whole world would melt away. Shika and he would cease to exist at the dinner table or the park when they went on an outing. Subtle but no less deep. He could not ask Shikaku for the wound was still fresh even after almost two decades. The pain was profound.

And Jiraiya…well he was both present and more than willing to offer advice, the thing was Minato would be amiss if he accepted it. Something told him that Sakura would not be as receptive to Jiraiya's methods as Tsunade was. And he was not ashamed to admit - to himself - that he really did not want to know what those methods were in any level of detail. Their relationship - Jiraiya's and Tsuande's - worked for them and that was where Minato was going to leave it.

When exactly was Sakura supposed to get dressed up? The only place I took her to was a laundromat.

He did not know, in short, how to woo a woman. But that was hardly any justification. Flowers. At the very least he should have brought her home flowers. Just once in addition to the groceries. He should have been more direct than his intentions went beyond the physical - beyond the situation they had that she could have misclassified - downgraded - as a situationship in her mind. He was committed. He was always committed. Even back when he could not openly commit. The commitment was always there, it was the timing that was off.

I told her I would wait…for the right person.

And yet his actions - spurred on by her, he realized - spoke to a completely different reality. He did not wait at all when he was being tested. He did not wait for things to line up. He did not wait for his plan. He did not wait for all this - this life to be behind him. He did not even wait for her to be in a more stable mental state. And that….

Clear words bridge the gap,

Heart laid bare in honest light-

Truth blooms love's petals.

"Direct. I need to be more direct." The mindful alignment of his thoughts and actions now with his words. He would wait. He would do it right. Tomorrow. Starting tomorrow.

If it's not too late. If I haven't messed it up that badly. If Uchiha doesn't….

His grip was tight around the plastic vision enhancers coincidentally as Sasuke rose to help Sakura out of her jacket. Minato's teeth pressed together with enough force to crack a molar when Sasuke stepped back and Sakura moved forward, out of the protection of her outer layer. Sasuke's gaze was low, locked on Sakura's pulp rear.

"He's not even trying to hide it!" He actually looked over his shoulder as if there was someone else in the car to corroborate if they were seeing the same thing he was. Outraged. He was outraged and offended beyond a reasonable doubt. It only got worse from there. Sakura turned around. And more than just the Uchiha's head turned. The plastic strained. He really should have splurged for the metal ones.

Silent prospects taunt,

Sweet may have beens turn to ash-

Regret's bitter bite.

xXx

"I really am sorry I'm late," Sakura said slightly out of breath from walking a block in heels at a pace faster than walking but not quite a jog. She lowered the cloth napkin in her lap, mindful to not let her elbows graze the satin tabletop.

"You more than made up for it," Sasuke hid his smirk behind his wine glass. The wine that he took the liberty of ordering before even her arrival. "That dress," he sighed in satisfaction, toasting to it before taking a sip, and setting the glass on the table.

Looks like Minato was right. The dress is a hit.

"Hm," she smiled. It was slightly tight. But he did not notice. "I'm surprised you got reservations at this place on such short notice." She was making a concerted effort to be on her best behavior - for now, only time would tell for how much longer - so she elected not to tack on an adlib to ask if he had a standing reservation to fill with whatever person he set his sights on that week. Instead, she took in the ambiance - careful to avoid the gaze of a couple that was staring at her with hunger as if she was the special on the menu - around her. The room was dark with soft yellow lighting. Naked Raiden bulbs. Dark wooden paneling. Floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with alcohol. The faint sounds of piano keys being played along with the plucking of a harp.

All signs point to enhancing the romance…on a planet of over seven billion people, here I sit across from you.

"Not as surprised as I am that you own something other than loungewear," he stared at her over his steepled fingers. His elbows sat bent on the wooden armrests. "You clean up nicely," he said, matter of fact.

Is this how you talk to all women or just the ones you serve a warrant to?

"Detective-"

"Sasuke," he cut her off.

Sakura kissed her teeth, using the borrowed time to dial back. She would not last long at this rate.

Ino would be so proud if I threw this wine on his face and stormed out…but then again if it meant a lifetime ban, she might just never forgive me.

"Sasuke," she rolled his name along her tongue, not caring for the way it sounded or felt. "You're antagonizing me."

"I am?" He asked with a disingenuous raise of his dark brows.

"You are, sir," she brought the wine to her lips. She inhaled the scent, breath fogging the globbed glass before she sipped slowly. Relishing the flavor. She did not find herself wishing it was vodka. It was that good. Delicious even. "I thought we were supposed to get off on a different foot?" She tilted her head to the side. Glancing at the bread on the table, it smelled divine. But even working down wine was posing to be a challenge. She smiled easily at their host who appeared to her left.

"Madam, sir," he dipped his head slightly at both of them. His hands were folded behind his back. His dark green double-breasted suit had shiny round, gold buttons. "May I please take your coat to the coat-check madam?" He gestured to it on the back of Sakura's chair.

"There's a coat check?" She asked, face losing some natural color. "Where?" She gaped with an open mouth, embarrassed she had asked both questions out loud.

The man looked uncomfortable. He turned to Sasuke for aid on how to proceed.

The Uchiha laughed, it was not unkind but her face turned even hotter. The rush of blood deepened her painted-on blush. "You were so excited that you missed it." He gestured with his eyes. "Arata," he addressed the host.

"Madam?" The man - only a surname: Arata - regarded her.

"Please," she leaned forward slightly so he could slip her coat from the chair with more room to work with. She brought a hand to her chest, covering some of the cleavage that was practically pushing up to her neck. She should have tried to sit in the dress before she committed. But that was not what she had in mind when considering it. At all. "Thank you," she dipped her head in Arata's direction. The man left just as quickly as he had come. "Thanks," she murmured the word. Saying it louder in his direction was not in her capabilities at the moment.

"I come here twice a year at least," Sasuke leaned back in his chair. His three-piece silk suit was all black. Soft. And expensive. Not one of Konan's - the stitching on the sleeves was different - something imported maybe from Suna. Ino would know. Ino would have an aneurysm if she knew where Sakura was right now and just who she was sitting across from. His voice, like his hair, was slick. "On Mother's Day and her birthday. So they're a little more accommodating with their scheduling."

You bring your mother to this place? Where everyone is…attached?

There was a throuple in the back booth who were not being very discrete with what was happening on account of all the gigging.

Dinner and an interactive activity.

"Oh," she played with the edges of her napkin. "That's sweet. So your mother and you are close?" She asked as a sane person would. Probably.

"Closer than I am with my father," Sasuke answered without emotion.

"That's something I can understand," she raised her glass. "To awful fathers?"

His eyes - smolder - tracked down the length of her face, lingering on her eyes. She felt the heat pooling in her belly.

Too far? Too soon?

The answer came when he raised his glass to click against hers. Through the rounded globe of her glass, with her lips pursed at the rim, she watched him drain his. It was being refilled by the waiter who showed up seemingly just as Sasuke had set it down.

Her lips tugged upward at the new arrival before her eyes fell on the empty plate in front of her. "Did I miss the menu too in my excitement?" She asked Sasuke only half disingenuously. Bratty.

"You really need to get out more, Sakura," he said with a sigh, amusement lighting his eyes in a manner that made her upper lip want to twitch. "We're doing the five-course tonight." His eyes never left hers while he addressed and dismissed the waiter with a flick of his wrist. A shiny watch, gold caught the light.

He knows how to accessorize…and wear a suit.

He looked good. Damn good. She could feel the daggers being shot at her in the back of her head. It was not every day that Konoha's premiere bachelor entertained a lady.

As if.

The waiter bowed and disappeared before she could even utter a sound of protest.

Five courses?

Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head when she remembered that particular detail. She suddenly had the urge to fan herself. Too bad that the red and white fans on his cufflinks were made of diamonds and rubies instead of paper.

xXx

Minato crouched down near the front wheelbase. His dark jeans had just enough stretch to accommodate. The flashlight in his hand moved from left to right. His cobalt eyes narrowed at a small blinking light. He clicked the flashlight. There was only darkness. He waited. The red light flashed again. He sighed, clicking the flashlight on before moving it between his teeth. His phone was in his hands. He captured pictures from both orientations.

He slipped his phone into his pocket. He rose to his feet. He glanced first left then right. The street was empty. He felt the hood of her car. It was cold to the touch. He made one more round, checking the pressure of her tires with his foot. They were all within the acceptable margins. He stalked off back in the direction of his car with dread in his stomach because he knew just more of what awaited him.

xXx

The sequins from her clutch bit into her arm and her side where it was tucked in securely. The corridor was longer than she expected, arched with dark black marble tile with gold - what else - veining. The reflections of the yellow lanterns were like stars on a country-side night sky. She was self-conscious of the amount of sound her shoes were making. Echoing right back into her eardrum louder than before. She did not know what was worse: to move slowly but more quietly but prolong the length of time or just to keep walking quickly (loudly) and have it be over as fast as possible. She split the difference by defaulting to something in the middle.

She was pleasantly surprised to find there was no line in front of the dark black door with a long, wide, protruding gold handle. Just one person. A woman wearing a uniform not all that different from the one Arata donned. She had a knee-length pencil skirt instead of slack and kitten heels.

Because women don't need support.

Sakura smiled, dipping her head in thanks at the door being held open for her. She came to a standstill, eyes widening involuntarily. She gasped softly, chin tilted up taking in the meticulously painted scenery of the ceiling. Women in kimono mid-dance, fans extended. Arms were frozen in place with grace and poise. Color. Vibrant and with variation. Dark black hair oiled slick and shiny done up with clips and flowers. They were beautiful. There was so much to look at. The bathroom was bigger than her apartment and Mr. and Ms. Honda's combined. Wide stall doors on either side. An emerald couch with gold detail rested next to three panels of floor-to-ceiling mirror. Makeup stations. Ring lights. Velvet upholstered stools tucked under each bench.

It smells so good in here.

Like flowers, like she was in a meadow.

Is that?

She furrowed her brow and turned her head, walking further into the bathroom. It was.

They have a damn fountain in here?

And a pound with actual fish tucked away in the corner lush with indoor plants. Koi swam lazily at the bottom of the clear waters. The falling water - coming out of what resembled a rock - slapped the surface at a predictable, comforting cadence.

The bathroom is nicer than the dining area.

A streak of orange caught her eye. The koi slapped its tail, disrupting the image. Sakura straightened her back. She moved toward the stalls. There was no peeing unless she slipped out of her dress completely. But that was not why she had wandered inside.

I needed a break and a touch-up.

And to make sure she did not get any greens in her teeth. They were always tricky and treacherous. She was not alone in the bathroom. A voice calling out from behind a stall alerted her to that fact.

"How is he so handsome?" The voice asked with a groan. "The longer I look the better looking he becomes."

Her lips pulled into a smile. She ducked her head and continued to move along.

"But he wasn't alone today!" A voice from the otherside answered. It was slightly more raspy than the first.

"I know! She looked annoyed every time I looked over at them. She has no idea how lucky she is."

Someone else is having a not-so-good time?

Sakura gave up her trek to the otherside. Her feet hurt. She still had ten stalls - on each side - to walk past. The sinks on her left were more than good enough. She parked herself in front of one by the wall - a way to hide the support beam. She set her clutch down on the marble counter. She opened it and began to root through.

"Did you see the dress she was wearing?" There was no shortage of judgment in the question.

"How could I not?" The woman retorted back. There was a sound of a zipper being pulled up. Sakura twisted the bottom of her lipstick until there was enough poking out to slather on her lips.

The stall door hinges creaked slightly. "If I didn't know how he was, I would assume she was some high-end escort." The woman let out a rough scoff.

"True, he's not like that cousin of his," the second voice mused. "He's so handsome. Maybe even more handsome."

"So much for Sage being a classy establishment."

The women shared a laugh at someone's expense. A tap somewhere on the other side of the wall turned on. "It totally clashes with her hair."

"I know right? Someone should have told her by now that red doesn't go with pink!"

Sakura's fingers froze around the cylinder of lipstick. Lips parted, eyes wide was the set of her reflection. The fountain did not reach her with its soothing chorus where she stood, stagnant from her indecision.

"Well, I'll see you in an hour."

"God it's so boring here."

"That's what you get for being a bathroom attendant. At least the tips are nice," the woman said with a laugh. "See you."

Thick heels tapped closer and closer in pairs until the most recent step. Green eyes locked with a pair of wide-with-mortification green-gray. Her mouth flew open, lip quivering.

"Hi!" Sakura said brightly without taking her eyes off the woman's reflection. "Perfect timing, can you help me with my necklace please?"

"Uh," the woman stammered, her hands came up about halfway. She did not move beyond that.

"I can help you ma-mm," the voice said, face losing color when she too realized the situation. At the angle, her gold name tag glistened to the point that it failed to serve its purpose.

Sakura turned around slowly, she held up her hands and wiggled her fingers. "I don't want to ruin my nails," she laughed, playing up the obliviousness. "Would you be so kind," she brought one of those hands to rest over her necklace.

To their credit, the women did not exchange a look. The attendant stepped forward. Her orange hair was coiled into a sleek bun. Sakura turned back around to face the mirror. She tilted her head down. With the heels, the woman was shorter than her. It was not something Sakura was accustomed to being barely average height. Her fingers were shaking slightly.

"So does Mr. Uchiha come here often?" Sakura asked in a pleasant voice almost as if they had not been saying far-from-flattering things about her. Assumptions.

"Yes ma'am," the woman behind her answered. "Every other week," she spoke quickly, stammering and fumbling with the clasp. "Sorry," she murmured.

That's considerably more than twice a year, detective.

"You're fine," Sakura assured her with a lilted voice meant to be disarming. Usually, it was reserved for children patients who wound up in the ER one way or the other. "Does he come at the same time?"

"Mr. Uchiha is a man of habit." Her voice was still unsure but her words were whole and enunciated clearly.

"Have you been working here long?" Sakura did not miss the way the woman jumped at the question.

"S-six months."

"And your friend?" She did not believe it to be a lie.

"Almost two years," the friend answered meekly, eyes trained to the ground and hands clasped tight in front of her.

"Have you seen him with anyone else?" Sakura asked, her voice was more firm.

"Got it," the attendant - Ai the backward nametag in the mirror red - said. Sakura felt the first loop slack around her neck. The chain pooled in her waiting palm. A red ruby glittered at the end of it.

"Thank you, Ai," she smiled, tucking it back into her purse. Grabbing it before she turned around to face both women. "Have you?" She asked eyebrows held up with expectation.

The women exchanged looks, balking in synchrony. They opened their mouths at the same time, apologies tumbled out of them. Hurried, panicked, and excessive. Sakura held up her hand, stopping them mid-word. They stared at her begging for mercy with their pained features, lips trembling with a partially complete plea for her to spare their jobs. Apparently Sage paid very well.

"Please answer the question," Sakura crossed her arms.

"Just once," Ai answered, she was clenching her white-gloved hands. "It was with an older woman." She looked to her friend for support.

"His mother," she clarified. "Mrs. Uchiha is very kind."

Sakura nodded her head. "Anyone else?"

"Mr. Uchiha isn't a player!" The brunette spoke up quickly with some fire, she covered her mouth and shrank back. "Sorry."

"I should have been more clear," Sakura's smile still did not reach her eyes. "Have you seen Mr. Uchiha with anyone else? Another family member or someone that looks like him perhaps?"

Like this cousin you referred to, or something?

"No," she piped up, glancing down at her wristwatch. "My break is about to end ma'am," she uttered with reluctance, unable to meet Sakura in the eye.

"Of course," Sakura slipped her hand into her purse. She pulled out a folded-up bill. "Thank you for your help," she held it out for the brunette.

"Ma'am?" She asked, untrustingly.

"Just a conversation amongst friends, nothing worth repeating, yes?" Sakura asked gaze focused with precision; ready to read each and every thought that fleeted over their faces.

The woman curled her fingers around the fifty ryo bill. She nodded her head in understanding. "Your hair and makeup look really nice, ma'am," she pushed out through her teeth, nearly whistling like a howl of wind, bowing shallowly before tucking the money away and taking her leave. Leaving behind her friends both old and new alike.

Sakura peeled her gaze from the door and brought it to Ai who was looking no less nervous. The orange-haired woman was quick to avert her eyes. "I was hoping you could help me with something else?" Sakura asked pleasantly, conveniently flashing the numerical amount of a crisp ryo bill directly at Ai. One hundred.

Ai nodded her head. Sakura's smile reached her eyes this time.

xXx

Ai had not been nearly as helpful as Sakura had hoped. The woman barely knew anything beyond what her friend had already shared - she managed to make Sakura feel a tinge of sympathy for Sasuke however for what it was worth. It did not seem like the man had many close relationships. No friends from what she heard. A hundred ryo down the drain but she consoled herself that it gave Ai some peace of mind that Sakura would not turn around and demand that she and her friend be fired. So she was back to her original plan - having to actually talk to Sasuke. It was like pulling teeth. Still, she tried to keep the agitation and annoyance off her face to the best of her admittingly limited capabilities in this particular department.

"You must have hundreds of cousins." Sakura was only exaggerating a little. Clan populations exploded like bunnies. Year over year. The trend ticked upwards.

In particular, do you have a cousin who was shot in the hand recently? Maybe one that told you a pink-haired oni did it?

"Probably," he agreed with a monotone that lacked color. "I never cared to keep track. I have one that is more than annoying enough all on his own. He's like a persistent mold. He won't go away. Shisui," he practically spat the name. "You two would get along."

Is that supposed to be sarcasm?

"Because you find me annoying? A mutual trait that the two of us share?" She asked without offense or defense. Because it could not be that she was mold-like. If anything - if anyone - was to be mold in this dynamic it was him. He was lingering. Festering. Growing in his ability to agitate her and disrupt her life.

"Because you're friendly," Sasuke supplied with displeasure. It was definitely a flaw in his book.

So probably not him then.

"Must be hard avoiding him living in the same compound," she luffed the leafy green that was the garnish on her plate with her gold fork.

What's with rich people and gold?

"I don't live in the compound. I moved out when I went off to university."

"You didn't go to Konoha?" She crossed her ankles. It made the most sense. It was close. It was the best their nation had to offer by far.

"I wanted a change, to be outside of Fire for a while. I went to a university in Oto. Kanta University," his tone was drier than the wine - despite being just wine and not sake - that had gone straight to her head and began to form a headache. "You probably-"

Oh, I have.

"They are known for their music worldwide but they also have an excellent forensics program. Now it makes sense why you run your own crime scenes," she smiled at the surprise that had flashed across his face. He did not expect her to know things. "So you lived in Oto for four years. Came back to Konoha after?" Sasuke nodded his head. "Where are you now?"

"In Yuma still," he wiped the corners of his mouth with a champagne-colored napkin that complimented the dark green tablecloth, pushing away his plate.

Sasuke Uchiha can't leave his bougie comforts.

There were no restaurants remotely at this level anywhere below Mori.

"So you must visit often, then. Back home, I mean." Sasuke's plate left the table faster than her words left her mouth. "I'm done, thank you." She nudged hers closer to save the poor man a trip to the dishwashing station.

"Not as often as my mother would like." He sighed long-sufferingly. "In her ideal world, it would be every day so she can have her picture-perfect family dinners. But I can only stand my father for so long."

She made a sympathetic sound that was as genuine as the shade of her hair. She felt his pain and her features communicated as such.

"What happened to your necklace?" Sasuke's brows bunched together. "Did it fall off?"

Sakura's hand went to her neck out of instinct. "Oh no," she laughed, shaking her head. "It was getting itchy so I took it off in the bathroom." She patted the top of her clutch that was by her thigh. "I didn't lose it."

"Good," he said with a curt nod that she tried to tell herself was not patronizing. "Was it a gift?"

What's with you all of a sudden?

"It was," she smiled softly thinking back to her thirtieth birthday. Ino would not take no for an answer when Sakura had politely declined given the sticker shock of the item after a quick internet search because her gut was telling her it was expensive-expensive. "I'm not used to wearing necklaces," she elaborated for reasons unknown. Maybe it was as simple as to get his eyes off of that vulnerable part of her anatomy.

"Your skin's not green so it must be real," he noted offhandedly.

Charming as always, detective.

"Are you seeing someone?" He asked. Such was the dance. She asked. He answered until he changed the subject entirely. And each time he did, he reinforced that he was the one in control - beating her over the head with it.

That was one elaborate leeway.

"No," she answered. It hurt to breathe. The bra - the damn modern-day corset - was digging into her skin. She could feel the metal hooks leaving indents, maybe even some bruises.

"Too busy?" The Uchiha was surprisingly conversational. She had her doubts about his intentions. "Or is loyalty just not for you? I had my reservations but my mother assured me you were a good girl."

Asshole.

"And my mom swore up and down that you were a gentleman, it stands that we're both disappointed."

He frowned slightly. "Was your lamb not cooked how you like?"

"No," she shook her head. "It was fine. It was delicious," she clarified before he could snap his fingers and demand a new plate or for them to slaughter a live one while they watched. She was not sure if she was exaggerating or not. Sasuke seemed demanding and the staff was bending over backward to keep him happy - well, satisfied.

Minato would like it. It's a little too gamey of a meat for me, which you would know if you bothered to ask.

"You hardly touched your soup or your salad."

Of course, he noticed.

"I had a big lunch," she lied. She had barely eaten anything today, something that Minato gave her grief over. She forewent lunch not because she needed time to get ready - she did, she was not very efficient in time management when it came to this probably due to lack of practice - but because her stomach had not stopped churning since she woke to an empty bed. He was up before her, sitting on the couch was where she found him. Minato was upset. Something was bothering him but she did not have enough bandwidth to ask him what it was. She was struggling with her own load as it were.

"I'm not seeing someone because it's not a priority," she moved the conversation from the lack of food she was consuming and addressed his inquiry. "I didn't reach out to you - which for the record, neither did you - for the same reason."

And because my gut told me it would not be worth it.

"You said yes to this," Sasuke pointed out what she needed no reminder of. Just like the painful reminder that she had not broken in the shoes she was wearing enough for them to be comfortable. All the pressure was felt on the ball of her foot.

Good thing I didn't take a pair of Ino's, they would have been stilts.

"You made it so easy to decline," she rolled her eyes. "And I always wanted to try Sage. Your mother has excellent taste."

Too bad that's all I can do. Taste.

Not even. It was more accurate to label it as aroma indulgence.

"I'll be sure to tell her."

It bothered her that she could not tell if he was joking or not. She would rather him not tell Mikoto because she would much rather not have Mebuki ever find out. Or God forbid, Ino. She would not be able to get out of that mess. Ino was protective - ferally so. She would not stand for Sakura to be in the company of a confirmed jerk no matter the setting of such a meeting.

"Why did you become a cop?" She asked him, with her fork and knife on the table. Just one more course was left. Dessert and then she cut herself out of her dress. She was sure Minato would help her without complaint. They could scarf down on the leftovers together once she was in an elastic waistband and a loose hoodie - preferably one of his. They were so much nicer (less worn) than hers.

He's probably hungry watching us eat all this food…well watching Sasuke eat. Maybe he grabbed something beforehand. He is practical.

"Instead of going into the family business of massage parlors?" She added out of necessity because Sasuke did not make any indication that he was ready to answer a low-effort question.

"Spas," Sasuke corrected her without missing a beat. "There's also real estate - commercial. Clubs and restaurants, the like," he elaborated further. "Joining the police force is every bit as a clan tradition. The Uchiha are overrepresented amongst the ranks," he enlightened her without discernible condescension - a pleasant change of pace. "But to answer your question, I wanted to get out of my prodigal brother's shadow. The son who could do no wrong. I want to be my own man, stand on my own two feet for what I think is right."

"That's admirable." She folded her hands in her lap and rested them there. "I respect your outlook."

Hopefully, Minato is staying out of the cold. It bothers his shoulder.

"Enough to overlook everything else?" The Uchiha asked with more than a hint of a smirk. "Your disgust is not as palpable as before."

"It's the alcohol," she said without blinking. "It makes everyone more tolerable." She tapped her finger against the stem of the glass. "And truth be told, you not accusing me of being in cahoots with a criminal is doing wonders for my tolerability." Her stomach tightened, making it even more of a punishment to breathe.

He chuckled, and the sound was far from unpleasant. He was attractive. Stupidly so. And just her type. Quiet. Confident. Capable. Smart. Tall. Stoic. But he was also things she could not stand. Rude. Dismissive. Arrogant. Obsessive.

"I have trust issues," Sasuke offered up disingenuously. "But you returned my coworker's camera. So that gives you some goodwill."

She smiled prettily. "A cop with trust issues, color me surprised."

"You have your experience with that don't you?"

"Hm?" She blinked at him in question.

"Hatake."

"How do you know," she held back the rest of her question. Alarmed. The table that was adorned with cloth might as well be as cold and unforgiving as stainless steel. The dim mood lighting was that of a purposefully dark interrogation room. How could she forget? How could she get comfortable?

How much did I drink?

A glass, not even. But on an empty stomach, it was much more. It might as well have been.

"His phone pinged within a block of your apartment. Sporadically over the past year," he shared without shame or remorse. Or decency really. His expression did not change. Detached. Aloof. Cold.

He's enjoying this.

"Wow," she bit her tongue. But her nostrils flared all the same. "I thought I wasn't a suspect."

"I needed leverage," Sasuke sighed, smoothing a palm against his slicked-back hair; reflective obsidian. "I find bringing up the whole thing to be distasteful in all honesty. But I would not be doing my job if I did not warn you. I see a pattern that's concerning."

"And what exactly do you think you see?" Emerald flame blazed in a challenge she would back with her actions.

"You have a type," Sasuke did not blink against the warmth of her heat. "Broken. Troubled. The kind to drag you down with them."

She snorted, turning her head away. Her jaw clenched tightly. Emerald-colored eyes searched for what she knew they would not find. No head of yellow hair and cobalt eyes, no seas of patience and tranquility. Mauve lips broke their seal enough for the sound to push through. "And you're what I need?" She asked the empty air.

"You don't need anyone, Sakura," he said her name with a surprising level of gentleness. "You have so much potential."

She did not comment on the half-thought that he shared. Just as she did not look at him as their plates were lifted and replaced with dessert in a silent communication that she did not care to note.

xXx

They were outside the restaurant. His seat was as low as it would go. His blond hair was shoved into a black skull cap. Black on black. His clothes were dark against the black leather seats. He watched them walk slowly. There was distance between them but it was not the width of that of strangers. Nor was it close enough to hold familiarity. Somewhere in the middle. The Uchiha walked slowly to accommodate her shorter legs given the illusion of length by her heels. Her strides were still small. Her shoulders were bunched up. She should have worn a scarf. Be he supposed with that neckline and that dress, it would have been a disservice.

He watched with a clenching stomach as Sasuke turned to face her rather abruptly. His back was to the street and there was not enough light for his reflection to be visible in the dark satin-covered window. Minato was unable to look away when Sakura tilted her head back to engage and maintain eye contact. He read her moving lips.

xXx

"Did you take the train?" Sasuke asked her. His warm breath ghosted the tops of her cheeks.

"I drove," Sakura said with a shake of her head. "I think it will be a while before I can take the subway again."

"Right," Sasuke shuffled on his feet. His hands were stuffed into his pockets. If Sakura did not know any better she would have guessed he was uneasy. "I'll walk you to your car."

"No thank you," she smiled to soften any bruised ego. "I need to make a phone call to my friend. Give her the whole rundown before I forget a detail. Otherwise, she will kill me," Sakura sniffled. The air was nippy, her toes cold, and her feet were sore. "You don't want that on your conscience."

He scoffed in amusement, lips curled upward in the beginnings of a smile. "Yuma is safe. Stay under the street lamps."

All three of them, you mean?

Where the average household income went up, the number of streetlamps decreased. "I will," she rolled her shoulders back in an attempt to stay loose.

Sasuke was staring at her. Right at her. Not saying anything. Sakura's brain did not quite know how to handle it. Her plump, painted lips parted.

"I'm sorry," Sasuke breathed over the silence, breath visible and moving with precision toward her. She blinked in confusion. "For searching your brother's clinic."

Of course, you ran a background check.

Sakura pushed the lump down in her throat with a rough swallow of cold air. "You were just doing your job," she barely warmed the air with a murmur that meant even less.

"And for your loss," his words were crafted with only earnestness.

Now that you've started apologizing, you can't stop or something?

A gloved hand tucked hair behind her left ear, pushing the naked earlobe to the forefront of attention. "Thank you," she said, holding his gaze for only the time it took to work out the syllables. This was something almost human in them - empathy. She shook her head free of thoughts that would bring an onslaught of memories both good and bad - all would leave her forlorn with longing for a time that she could never return to.

"Well," she looked at him expectantly, eyes bright with clarity and mind focused with singularity. She wanted to go home. "That was something alright. Thank you for the treatment of a proper five-course meal."

"None of which you ate," Sasuke's eyes trailed down his arm to the to-go bags in his hand. She had five boxes. Boxes he gave her no choice in carrying.

"You should have asked, three courses would have been excessive. Five was just ridiculous," she clicked her tongue, reaching for them with a small thankful smile. They exchanged hands. Gloves meeting, muting any potency of potential sparks. Negligible.

"Not my style," his gaze moved over her face languidly. Like it was his right. It annoyed her more than she cared to admit to herself that it left her with a twinge of self-consciousness. "When will I see you again?"

Presumptuous, that is your style.

She bit back a groan. Maybe the dress was too perfect. His eyes had not strayed from her person for long. Or he just really liked messing with her mind. "I'll let you know?" She offered the best she could at the moment.

Don't hold your breath.

"Think about what I said. The world - Konoha, Yuma - is not without decent men for a decent woman like you."

She nodded her head at what was perhaps the closest thing to a genuine compliment she received all night but that too was wrapped in layers of entendre. "Well, good night," she waved and took a step back. A hand on her elbow stopped her from turning on her heel. What she saw in her eyes had panic climbing up her spine. Hot. Prickly. Invasive. His intent was clear. Long before his long, dark lashes flickered down to her brownish-pink lips and stayed there.

She wanted to kiss him even less than she wanted Minato to see her kiss him. Maybe it was neck and neck - too close for her to admit even to herself. Like everything else, he had trouble with hearing no. So she did what she felt she had to. Sakura stepped forward. She tilted her head up and pressed a kiss on his cheek. Her eyes closed for just a second. She stepped back.

"Goodnight, Detective Uchiha." She smiled with something that was borrowed from a fragment of her imagination. She held the leftovers to her chest - a barrier - and began to walk as fast as her earlier decisions would allow. Her green eyes never stopped scanning. Searching.

xXx

Her heels came to a stop right at the edge of her black outdoor mat that said "Welcome" in brown cursive letters. The wind bit her bare hands - her balled-up gloves shoved into her peacoat pockets, expanding them. There was no small sliver of light at the bottom of her door.

Is he just sitting in the dark?

He had to have made it back home before her. She had driven deliberately slowly - taking the toll bridge so that a picture of her license would be taken by the cameras - due to her six-inch stilettos. An alibi at best and a timeline at worst - if her body ended up found under a bridge by some teenagers trying to get themselves into trouble. Never did she think all those hours spent watching her procedural comfort show after work that her life would become like a seasons-long, drawn-out story arch.

They had agreed to no phone calls or texts just in case someone was within reading or listening distance or if the towers were being monitored in accordance with her location to try to correlate her burner to her. So she could not even ask.

It could not be that he was asleep already either. He would have made sure she made it home before doing such a thing. He was considerate like that. Sakura let out a constricted sigh. Her coat felt heavy, it was weighing her down.

A bath. I want to soak in a bath.

Before she settled down at tucked into her leftovers while in an oversized sweatshirt and loose shorts. She could not wait to get Minato's opinion on the lamb.

He's going to love it. No potatoes for him. They were divine. Well okay, maybe he can have one. If he's nice. If he offers to do the dishes.

The potatoes were like butter from the one bite she had. And she did enjoy watching Minato do the dishes - with his sleeves rolled up and his forearms out on display, slightly veiny. Sakura fumbled with her keys, trying to find the right one. A porch light to her right turned on right before a head popped out of the now-open door.

"Sakura, dear," Ms. Honda blinked at her with sleep in her eyes. Her light-blue plush robe was wrapped around her tight. "Are you just getting back in?"

"I am," Sakura smiled apologetically, keeping her voice low enough to not disturb any other sleeping neighbors but still loud enough for Ms. Honda's hearing aids to pick up on. "Did I wake you?"

"No," Ms. Honda shook her head. "It was the darn raccoons getting into the garbage bins again. They knocked one over. When I went on the balcony to check, I noticed your car was gone. I thought maybe you started up work again." Her gray eyes moved up and down Sakura's frame. "You look lovely."

Oh, Ms. Honda, you're only saying that because you can't see what's under this jacket.

"Thank you," Sakura curtsied much to the older woman's delight. "I had a date," she explained. She found the key that had evaded her earlier.

"Oh," Ms. Honda's eyes lit up. "Someone I know?"

"Um," her eyes moved slowly up and to the right. "Remember the detectives that were questioning me? Not the blond one with the wedding ring."

"Oh, Sakura!" Ms. Honda's face pulled into a frown. "Dear, certainly he's handsome, but he's not a very nice boy. You can do better. You should do better."

Thank you, Ms. Honda. I don't think we'll be seeing one another again. Fingers crossed.

Sakura chuckled. She was grateful for the woman's indignation on her behalf. "How is Mr. Honda doing?" Her green eyes became more alert and focused.

"Better," Ms. Honda said with a sigh. "He's back to driving me up the wall with his antics. I have to cut his pill in half for him to eat it. He's a grown man!"

"Let me know when he runs out. I'll prescribe the chewable kind for the refill," Sakura offered with a knowing smile. "They are very popular and taste like cherries."

"Ah, dear," the woman placed her palm flat over her chest. "You take such good care of us. Many blessings to you and your mother."

Sakura dipped her head. "Goodnight, Ms. Honda."

"Goodnight, dear." Ms. Honda stood with her door open until Sakura's lock clicked closed. The porch light dimmed until there was nothing left.

Sakura blinked her eyes in the darkness. She lowered her keys into the bottom of her decorative bowl. The clink of metal and plastic against ceramic alerted her to it. The rustle of her plastic bag was next as it rested on the console table. Then her clutch. She carelessly nudged the bowl slightly in the process.

Maybe he did fall asleep.

With a sigh, Sakura brought a palm flush against the wall and raised the opposite leg. With the hand on the same side of her leg, she began to undo the clasp on her shoe. She hissed in relief when it clattered to the floor. She grimaced.

I should be quieter.

She half turned so she was facing the door again to free her other foot. She caught the shoe before it hit the floor this time. Bent over, that was when she felt something bump into her. But before she could work up the coherency to make a sound. A hand was placed against her mouth. Muffling her confusion.

Minato?

She recognized his scent immediately but that did not stop her from trying to spin around. His grip on her front pushed her back into his chest, nearly knocking the air from her lungs. She froze. Heart stammering.

W-what are you doing?

His hand - the one not clamped across her lips - attacked the button of her coat next with such blatant disregard she was worried they would scatter all over her floor and be lost forever under the couch. Her skin was flushed. The separation between them was just enough to accommodate her coat falling to the floor in a muffled frump. The buttons clicked against the hardwood floors where the rug did not reach. Her mind was spinning with what was just happening.

Her eyes widened at the sound of her zipper being torn open with just as much force as her buttons. She squirmed in his grip but he held her firm. Both her wrists were pinned by the arm that held back her ability to speak. The silk trailed down her body, catching at her hips. The straps were at the crook of her bent arms.

Even in the pitch black where she could not make out the whites of his eyes, she felt embarrassed, exposed. Terrified. But also something more. Something she did not want to give any legitimacy to by thinking about it.

Minato, tell me what's going on. Tell me what you're doing.

Doing to her. In the times they had been intimate, he was never like this. So forceful. So hungry. So after his own needs. He was attentive. He was gentle. He was reassuring. He was always in control. Never like this. Because even if he was exerting his will on her right now, he was in no more control of himself than she was. It was almost primal the way his touch felt. Possessive.

Did my dress really get him this worked up?

Or was it more than that? Was it seeing her with another man? There for him to see but not touch. He released her hands. She did not pose resistance when he tugged the dress down her hips and buttocks so that she stood in front of him in nothing but her bra and red thong - because she did not want panty lines to impact the illusion of her painted-on dress. She did not pose resistance because she wanted to see where this would all lead. She wanted to know what it was like to let him have his way with her. It thrilled her. The prospect of being manhandled. By him. By Minato.

Because she knew in her bones that he would not hurt her. At that moment. Sakura stilled against his hand. It slipped from her lips down her neck - his thumb pressing just enough pressure to make her breath hitch and her pulse jump. It burned all the way down her arm to the inside of her wrist where he latched on. Strong fingers curling in a grip. She stepped over her pooled dress and coat. Following after him without a sound as he navigated them past the obstacles of her living room as effortlessly as if the lights were on. Butterflies attacked her empty stomach.

The door was open. He nudged it wider with his shoulder. She slipped through behind him. Heart beating so fast that her pulse thrumming in her veins betrayed her anticipation. She licked her lips which lacked the taste of him. She would have to remedy that.

I should have touched up my makeup.

As if she could have predicted this even with her vivid imagination. She would be lying if she said she did not expect the evening to end this way somehow - with Minato taking her out of her dress. She just overestimated how involved - persuasive - she needed to be in the process. The bedroom was dark. She held onto his arm with the hand that was not in his tight grip. Like he was worried he would lose her in a crowd if he relaxed it even just a margin more. She did not mind. Not in the slightest. She furrowed her brow when he did not stop. But she did not question him. A spoken word could bring it all crashing down until the prospect of whatever this was, was nothing more than pulverized diamond dust. Once something of intense value but reduced to nothing. That was how much pressure was against her chest. The damn bra was crushing her. If only he had removed it just like he did everything else.

She closed her eyes and turned her head at the flip of a switch and the brightness of the lights. She kept her gaze on his fully clothed back. Right between his shoulder blades. She could see the tension he carried. Minato stepped into the shower, tugging her with him. His warm front pressed her back against the cold tile. She let out an involuntary gasp.

You can do whatever you want to me.

Her cheeks flooded with color no later than the thought had filled her mind. She averted her gaze, blushing furiously, worried that he somehow read her eyes but also wanting him to. Because she would never be able to say those words out loud. The embarrassment would kill her. Surely. Maybe.

You set me ablaze,

You claim to be unaware-

Passion's spark smolders.

She opened her mouth only to close it when he turned on the tap. The water behind him. She wore perplexion over her pink filled-in brows and painted lips. Her green eyes gazed upon his face. His eyes - cobalt and not navy - did not contain the same ravenous nature of his actions just moments ago.

"Minato?" She found her voice to call out his name. She was confused. He was so close but at the same time, she could not read him. He was distant. Her confusion turned to nothing - her mind went blank - when he pulled out his phone. There was a picture on his screen when he turned it to face her. She frowned. "What am I looking at?"

"I found this under your car," his voice was barely above a whisper. She shivered despite the shower filling with steam.

"My car?" She asked, giving the picture a second glance. She could make out something that looked car-adjacent. A curve of some kind. She recognized the bits of object in the frame. Black. Her tire. She squinted. She saw a dark gray box and a blurry red dot. Her eyes widened. "A tracker?" She looked at him. What else could it be?

"I need to check your bags and phone for bugs," his own phone disappeared from her line of sight.

"Console table," she managed to work out over the falling water when it became painfully apparent he was waiting for her engagement. "They're all there. Everything," but the undergarments on her person.

"Did he touch you?" Minato asked her, eyes dark and voice clinically detached.

"Touch me?" She furrowed her brow, confused.

Oh.

That was why. That was why he stripped her. Her clothes. Sasuke could have planted something when he placed his hand on the small of her back when he helped her into her chair. Or maybe the host slipped it into her coat pocket.

So that's why….that's why?

"Sakura," Minato snapped her attention back to him.

"N-No," she denied shakily. "I don't know." She felt like a fool. So dumb.

"I'll let you know if I find something." He was gone just as soon as his lips stopped moving. The door opened. The cold air hit her front.

She blinked her eyes slowly. The air was damp and warm. She listened to the water drop for a minute more before her fingers worked to pick out the pins in her hair, letting them rest on the shampoo shelf for her to remove later. The pink hair tumbled down to mid back. She undid the hooks of her bra and stepped out her panties, setting both aside on the bench where minimal water reached - her red thong required special hand care if she wanted to save them. She moved under the steady flow of the water; it pelted her face - washing it of her disappointment. She closed her eyes and inhaled. It was just her luck that when she could finally breathe again, Minato took his breath away with him in a whirlwind.

xXx

She was in the middle of applying lotion to her legs when there was a knock on her door. "Come in," she said without stopping her task. She focused on spreading the vanilla-scented lotion into her calf. Her heart rate spiked as the door creaked open.

"It's all clear. Your phone and things are bug-free."

From the volume of his soft-spoken voice, she discerned that he had not moved from the doorway. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed that was the case. His toes did not even break the barrier. He was in his entirety out in the hall.

"That's a relief," she said mechanically just as her leg lowered from where it was propped up on the bed to the floor to join the other half of its pair. She turned her body so she was facing him. "What about the tracker?"

"It's the police. The Akatsuki use a different grade," he answered without letting his eyes dip lower than the gap between her brows. "For now, ignore it. Pretend that you don't know it's there."

Easy for you to say.

"Do you know how long it's been there?"

"No," he shook his head once, definitively. "Try not to worry about it. Get some sleep. Goodnight."

What?

"Minato," she said his name with confusion. It was not even ten. She looked at him as if he had sprouted a second head right in front of her eyes.

"I am expecting some phone calls. I don't want to disturb you." He tapped the doorframe once before he pulled the door knob toward him, disappearing from view.

"Too late," she murmured into an empty room moments before she flopped onto her bed. Her silky white negligee - the sexiest thing she owned - frumpled in defeat around her. Sakura grabbed the first pillow within reach. She covered her face. It swallowed her groan of frustration. Her heels moved up and down as she flared them on the mattress. Her bottom lip was pulled past her top, in a moody pout. She tucked the pillow under her chin and curled her back. Her arms wrapped around it securely. It smelled like him and that just made everything so much worse.

I really should have asked Ino to be more specific.

Because from where she lay - sprawled out like a starfish sunbathing on a rock - the only person her dress got back at was herself.

Chapter Text

"It's not a big deal," she insisted with a little delusion and more than a fair share of stubbornness. "Just go out there," she encouraged herself in the mirror, psyching herself up to the levels needed to overcome such an obstacle. "It's your home. Just go outside, and say good morning. Ask how he slept on the couch. Ouch!" She pressed the pad of her index finger to the pricking pain from the spot where she had just tweezed a pink hair in the no-trespassing zone between her brows that she was adamant to have two of. Distinctly. She waited for a bead of blood, with dread only to release her breath, to bubble up. The redness would go down on its own. Her hastiness did not have lasting ramifications of the visual variety at least.

"Just be normal. Don't be weird." Her breath coated and made the glass opaque. Her mouth was wide open. She guided the metal tweezers to another hair that she deemed was no longer welcome. "Good morning," she tried out with a sunny voice, holding still long enough to rip the follicle by the root; gaining supposedly six weeks of peaceful ceasefire. "Too high." She inhaled. "Good morning," she tried again in a lower register. It was too low. She sounded like a life-long chain smoker and that was no better than sounding like an excitable twelve-year-old. She slapped the tweezers against the counter. "It's just a good morning, Haruno. Try not to sound psychotic." Or pathetic. Needy. The list was long but her patience was short. She frowned at her reflection. She pinched both cheeks, only releasing them when the milky skin was agitated crimson. She adjusted her hair. Tossing it all over to one side. "Too much," she shook her head to encourage equilibrium—the natural state of things.

With a tug, the red cap was separated from the yellow chapstick. She twisted the bottom to encourage more to the surface. She dabbed her lips. Vertically to give each of the creases attention that they deserved but were rarely given. Sakura stepped back. She regarded herself with critical eyes. Her light purple tank top was mostly wrinkle-free. Her white shorts were short. Really short. But not as desperate as her failed outfit had been last night. She batted her eyelashes, which had a coat of clear mascara. Just enough to lengthen and make them appear fuller without being outright noticeable. Just enough to have his gaze linger and tease his mind about just what was different about her. So he would look again and again trying to figure it out: the art of subtlety.

"Good morning," she raised a hand for a short wave. Her shoulders slumped. "Why am I so bad at this?" She bemoaned, glaring at herself in accusation. "This is your fault." With one last adjustment of her hair, she walked out of the bathroom with her shoulders rolled back and her head held high. She would fake it. That was the plan. She could not hear him walking about. She would make him breakfast. That would surely win her points. She would hit him fast and hard with her charm when his belly was full.

I can be irresistible when I want to be.

And she really wanted to be.

"Yeah," she nodded her head. Her hand was around her doorknob, warming it with her skin. "Yeah," she whispered before she opened it, stepping into the hall. It did not take long for her to learn all there was to learn. The silence was not because he was asleep. She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, sighing deeply. The words she practiced shriveled up and died on her tongue.

Pathetic.

Something purple caught her eye. She turned her head, reaching for the note on her door. She pushed her lips to the side.

I'm out. There's breakfast on the table. Hora is outside. I'll be back by dinner.

She exhaled; long, deep, and loud. "Just what is your problem?" She asked, crumpling the note in her fist. Turning back around and retracing most of her steps—coiling her hair in a bun that was secured in place with a tie that left behind an imprint over her wrist—to change into something that would give her more comfort. Warmth.

He smoothed a hand over his shiny-with-product white hair slicked back against his scalp. His thin lips were in a stern line. His small but thick ears listened to the quick words being unloaded on him by a tall blonde woman, made even taller still by her shoes, in a maroon-colored skirt suit. She held a sizable stack of manilla folders to her chest.

"Mr. Mashimoto is expecting you in ten minutes. He wanted to discuss the Nagoya case. The mayor will run some ideas by you about the roadblocks for the new street parking initiative. That is at one thirty," the woman's agile tongue did not miss a single syllable or stumble once as she continued to give the man a rundown of his agenda. "You have a suit fitting before then. During lunch. Should I order from Sage again, Mr. Sugawara?"

The man nodded his head. "Schedule the meeting with the mayor for the Gold Course. It's been ages since I've seen the greens."

"It's late notice, sir," the woman balked, retaining just a fraction of her color.

"He'll get over it," he smirked. A hand with gold rings on each finger grasped the handle of a tall mahogany door. He pulled it open. His shiny, glossy shoes came to an abrupt squeaking halt. His yellow eyes widened at a broad-shouldered silhouette standing in front of his wood-paneled windows. He closed the door rapidly. His assistant just managed to stop herself from colliding with his back.

"Mr. Sugawara?" She asked him, curious. She pushed her tortoise-shell glasses up her nose, shuffling the paperwork—cases—in her arms.

"Clear my hour," Shinji said gruffly without looking back, eyes narrowed and frame tense. He adjusted his striped purple tie around his neck.

"You have a meeting in seven minutes!" The woman reminded him with a shrill rise of her voice.

"I said clear it!" Shinji snapped at her, sparing her a heated glare over his shoulder, unaccepting of perceived insubordination.

"O-of course, sir," she bowed deeply twice. She walked hastily away to comply with his order before the level of his anger rose and he became even more volatile. She would think of something to tell Mr. Mashimoto. He was more reasonable than the D.A.—it was all relative.

When the clicking of her heels was nothing more than a lingering echo and the hallway to his office was empty—he had glanced over his shoulder to check no less than three times—Shinji grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. A small part of him—small enough to pretend it did not exist at all—held out hope that what he had seen was either a trick of the light, a result of too much stress and caffeine and too little sleep, or some combination thereof. He did not let the rigid line of his brown suit alter in any way when the image before him was more or less the same.

"You have some nerve coming into the District Attorney's office," he barked out harshly, clippingly. The catch in his voice masqueraded as roughness, a fortunate outcome. "Did anyone see you?"

The blonde man turned around, slowly. Partially. He looked over his shoulder; the face coming into view for the first time. Partially. He was distorted by shadows. A blue iris surrounded by white trailed down to the top of the desk.

"Coffee?" He asked profoundly unbothered. At home even. Fully.

Shinji scoffed; an offended expelling of air through his nose all at once. "What do you want, Namikaze?" He demanded the answer, rooted in place just in front of his door, projecting the control he did not have of the situation with his voice—an overcompensation.

"It's oddly comforting to see that your manners haven't improved, D.A. Sugawara." Minato placed his hand in his pocket. Leisurely he turned his head—as if it were an afterthought—back to the paneled windows. The populace moving about below were almost small enough to be ants. Faceless. Nameless. So easy to fall into the trap of thinking them inconsequential. Each one a life; each one a complete world.

"You haven't changed either," Shinji noted dryly, biting back the passive-aggressive comment about old habits dying hard, just like he chose to ignore the fact that the one breaking into his office had the audacity to lecture him on manners. "New suit?" The D.A. with his name etched into a plaque on the door eyed the dark navy number. It was a modern fit. Not as tight as some of the younger fitness enthusiast members of the Clan wore. But not as much excessive fabric of the classic fit that the older, established figureheads donned. The Yellow Flash's preferred style was right between the two extremes.

"Pulled it back into the rotation," Minato said with a curl of his lip in a ghost of a smile that could not quite be carried into his voice.

The man with slicked-back white hair yanked his arm up. The sleeve of his coat and shirt pulled back to reveal a gold-faced watch. "As great as this catchup has been, can we speed it along?" He demanded impatiently, just one step removed from tapping his foot. That was a line that could not justifiably be crossed just yet. "On whose behalf did he send you today?"

"What's the rush, D.A. Sugawara? You just cleared your hour."

Shinji bit down on his tongue, hard. The blond man's arrogance wafted off of him like a cologne. It assaulted his senses. It bastardized the sanctity of his private chambers. "I am asking one more time," Shinji's yellow eyes locked with the gold nameplate that was polished so thoroughly it practically glittered on the desk. His desk. His office. His domain. "What do you want, Namikaze? And do me the common courtesy—the decency—of speaking to my face."

What do you know of decency, D.A. Sugawara?

"Hm," the soft sound left the man instead of the internal thought in the form of a pointed question—an escalation. Minato was slow to turn around completely. His eyes were flat. And his expression was impassive. It could be anything. "Have you given any thought to your plea deal?"

The district attorney furrowed his black eyebrows until they connected. "I haven't made my recommendations." He left the implication that he had other cases. A mountain of them to sift through. "It will be lenient. The defendant's lack of public criminal activity will be taken into account. No reported injuries. It will be on par with plea deals in the past. Your boss will find no points of contention with it."

"Haruto Nara," Minato said his name with a sternness that had the hair on the back of his neck standing. Shinji remained silent. Minato was not done speaking or observing. An interruption was not permissible. "Will receive a better deal."

"Define better," his curiosity had the best of him at that moment. He knew it the moment the first word had left his mouth.

"He walks," Minato stated with the casualness of declaring the weather while standing outside to experience such weather.

Shinji balked. His argument started in a sputter. "That's impossible," he vehemently denied. "This is a high-profile case. He walked into the police station with the gun whose ballistics match the casings found at the scene and the holes left in the cameras!" He raised his voice in disgruntled indignation. "He confessed!" His words, speech, and demeanor implored the blond lieutenant to see reason. There was only so much realistically he could do here.

"D.A. Sugawara, I appreciate the challenges ahead of you and your circumstances," Minato's voice glided over the unsteady silence smoothly, leaving Shinji to doubt the genuineness of his words. Minato was a smart man but he was not an attorney. He could not understand just the gargantuan lift what he was saying so easily would require. And even with all that effort, it might just not be possible. "But there is no other way."

"Why would he care about this resource?" Shinji called him out on his bluff. It had to be a bluff. "The process is patented. It works. The terms have never been negotiated before." It was foolproof. And neither he nor the man in front of him were fools, far from.

"That," Minato rubbed his chin with a reproachful gaze directed at the desk and the untouched coffee cup. "Is not for you to worry about," he surmised in a distant voice—far-off.

"What you are asking me to do is career suicide. I get to decide what is for me to worry about. Me and only me," Shinjji took two steps forward. His fist clenched at his side. The rings along his fingers dug in enough to leave angry, red impressions.

"Remind me, D.A. Sugawara, is it not an election year?" Minato asked, blinking slowly in an act that was not blatant enough to take open offense at the condescension. It was clinical the way Namikaze got under his skin.

"Are you threatening me?" He narrowed his yellow eyes to slits, he hissed the question. Spit flying and teeth bared. A vibration had him momentarily pausing—his mind estranged from the anger that churned in him—he regarded the blond on his phone, staring at the screen for but a second because not even a moment later, Minato slid it across Shinji's desk. The white-haired man stopped it from falling off the edge out of pure reflex. He held it at arm's reach and squinted his eyes in an action to gather focus. Clarity.

"What is this?" The district attorney asked, voice shaky in a dead giveaway that he knew exactly what it was. His eyes went wide. He swiped to the right. More faces filled the frame. He quickly moved forward with an increasingly shakier hand. Next. Next. Next. Nextnext. The pictures kept coming. The faces changed. The clothes changed. The positions changed. But one face—the singular common thread—did not. He grabbed the back of an overstuffed leather chair. His knees were nearly too weak to support him. He held the phone in a tight grip. His death sentence and sustenance all in one.

"That's for you to keep," Minato stated through barely moving lips. In fact, he had barely moved at all. "I would keep it safe if I were you," he offered helpful advice without cost—something out of character for him and especially for his line of work. "I'm sure your wife and the general public would be very interested in learning who you choose to deliberate with in your private chambers," his cobalt grazed the office, lip curled with disgust. Open disgust. "You should have taken the time to corroborate the status of some of your clients." All on the taxpayer's dime too.

Honest people's hard earnings.

Shinji brought a hand to his chest. His breath was erratic. "H-How?" He asked, doubled over and his sweat dripping onto his dark green carpet—what was not absorbed by the taut leather grain.

"We don't have time to get into that, D.A. Sugawara," Minato said dismissively with zero regard or remorse; in complete and utter apathy. "You know everything you need to know. But I still don't."

"What do you want?" Shinji asked with a grunt, eyes squeezed tight from the spinning brought upon by his world imploding on himself. The pictures on the phone—the shameful pictures—would bring about his doom—everything he built would come tumbling down leaving him with nothing to hold but the dust of what once was. Ruin. He would be ruined.

"Has the Uchiha Clan given you their patsies?" Minato asked coolly.

"I have their names. All three of them. They are to turn themselves in, in two days' time," he worked out through his heavy breathing, taking at least three times as long to speak the words. "I think I'm having a heart attack," he wheezed, coughing into his hand. Each breath went in with a whistle.

"Wouldn't that be convenient," Minato muttered darkly just before he shoved the man into the chair, unceremoniously and roughly. Oh so roughly.

Shinji looked up at him with blown pupils and a wide mouth. He dug his nails into the leather of the armrest. His head was attached to the headrest—fixed in place by his terror.

"Loosen your tie," Minato instructed, calmly.

"W-what?" Shinji asked him, mouth dry and brain working much too slow to have any hopes of making sense of anything.

"Get a hold of yourself," Minato's smooth voice slapped him across the face. He was right there—eye level. And how cold those eyes were. Frigid. "And listen to me."

He nodded his head; the action was mindless. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down. His shaking, sweaty hand went to undo the knot around his neck. He inhaled a greedy breath. Audibly.

"You will wait until the Uchihas have accepted their deal and are locked up before you drop the charges for Haruto Nara. You will not let this blow back up on the Nara Clan, on Shikaku, or me. Do I make myself clear?" Minato asked, but a nose-width away, with his hands shoved into the pockets of his pants. "D.A. Sugawara?" He asked when the beat of silence was no longer a reasonable duration.

"Yes," the D.A. breathed, with each rapid blink, Minato blurred and sharpened. Sweat migrated down his brow to his balance precariously on his chin until another bead made the same migration only to displace its predecessor. "I'll take care of it. I'll say that—"

"I don't need the details," Minato cut him off, leaning back to stand at his full height. His hand went to the cigarette tucked behind his ear.

"I have a lighter," the man began to fumble against his pockets. Slapping his hand to his chest and upper thighs.

"I don't need anything else from you," Minato halted the man's movements with one utterance. "I'll delete the copies I have once the deal is complete."

The D.A. nodded his head. "And…?" He let the rest of his question linger as the air between them.

"There's nothing more to discuss," Minato's words were as good as a notarized document. The D.A. would win another re-election. His wife would be none the wiser and everything would be just as it was. The D.A. was safe and in the clear until the next time Minato needed something. He sincerely hoped there would not be a next time—that there would be no more Haruto Nara's in his future.

Yesterday's shadows,

Sins etched unchanged remains—

Tomorrow's light streams.

"Don't stand too close to the mayor's backswing. Give him my regards," Minato's parting words left his tongue. Shinji watched the blond Nara's retreating back all the way to the door, silently with wide-wide eyes behind his thick glasses that slid down the sweaty ridge of his nose.

xXx

The temperature difference between outside and inside was not as extreme as the typical standard. The air was cold—chilled—as the bright lights shone overhead. The medley of aromas was almost overwhelming to his nose just as the vibrancy of colors was to his eyes. He did not even know where to begin looking. So he ignored it for the most part. His thumb in his pocket rubbed against the small sphere with two rounded points; the Maneki Neko on the end of a singular key. The repetitive motion grounded him. It offset some of the unease he did not fully acknowledge the extent of.

It's in your head…mostly.

The man behind the counter in a dark blue apron recognized him immediately from the way the polite, professional smile melted off his face at collision, only for a split second. He was very good at his job and in turn, at maintaining his public-facing persona.

The masks we all collect and wear.

The dirty blond's lips pulled into an easy smile and he went back to conversing with a customer. A middle-aged woman with orange hair. She was asking questions about the arrangement in front of her and he was dutifully answering them. They were both just out of earshot. Minato meandered closer to the counter. Head turned slowly as he surveyed the room.

Must be a slow day.

The thought crossed his mind as if it were news to him. It was nearly closing time. He had made it in before the clock struck the hour but his reception had yet to be seen. He waited without making it obvious that he was waiting. He should not have bothered. The woman in her obliviousness hardly noticed him when she left the shop a good twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds later—he was counting without the aid of a clock.

"What are you doing here?" Inoichi lifted the latch of the divider and stepped out from behind the counter. He began the process of removing his apron from around his neck.

"I'm getting that a lot today," Minato noted dryly at the lack of enthusiastic greetings, he would take a "hi" at this point. "I'm beginning to think I'm the problem."

Inoichi snorted in a clear lack of amusement. He folded the navy canvas and placed it on the wooden countertop behind him, all without breaking eye contact once. "What do you want, Minato?" His tone made it clear he would not ask again.

"What everyone else wants," he gestured around him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. He was immersed in context. "Flowers," he eliminated all potential for doubt with the explicit utterance.

"I sincerely doubt that very—"

The chime of the door had them both pausing, Inoichi's words cut off by the ringing that was usually a welcomed event. Inoichi stiffened and for a second, Minato saw a flash of fear on his face. Unbridled and honest. Genuine.

"Daddy!" A distantly familiar voice filled Minato's perked ears. "What's this I'm hearing about you getting up on a ladder…what are you doing here?" It was instant and drastic the way her entire demeanor changed when she placed him standing there in front of her dad. She had her arms crossed over her chest and a scowl on her face.

"You look like your father when you do that," Minato smiled at her, disarming and airy. "Hey, Ino," his eyes warmed to a soft cobalt hue.

Inoichi's face went red instantly but it was his daughter that beat him to it. "Don't you 'hey Ino' me," the woman pointed an accusatory finger at him—so close that it could break the barrier of air that separated them. "Are you stalking me?" She asked him outright, ignoring her father's disgruntled cry for explanation and that too quickly given his franticness. Minato felt two pairs of identical eyes glaring at him with heat. It was a marvel he did not burst into flames and Inoichi's heart did not give out. "If you're here to confess whatever connection or feelings you think you have with or for me, stuff it. I'm not interested in you."

"Good to know," he turned his attention back to Inoichi, expression blank. "So the flowers?"

"How do you know my daughter?" Inoichi narrowed his eyes and dropped his voice, standing tall in his protectiveness.

Besides the obvious you mean?

"Excuse me?" Ino asked Minato, bristling, as if her father was not even there. "Flowers? You're here to buy flowers?" She spat, figuratively, even in anger she was in control of such things.

"You do sell them here right?" Minato's impassive voice aired the question, even going as far as to let his eyes wander to the clock on the wall. It was over thirty minutes past closing.

At this rate, I'm going to hit traffic.

He would be late for dinner and that was hardly the foot he wanted to lead with.

"You rejected my best friend who is a doctor, who is beautiful, who is kind, who is funny, who is generous, who is perfect. Perfect, I tell you!" She was livid in her anger—indignation—but her words were crystal clear. Maybe it was just something about Konoha's women. "And you have the audacity—the audacity— to walk into my shop to buy flowers for some substandard, mouth-breathing, dollar-store bimbo?" Ino jabbed him in the chest with her finger—pushed over the invisible line by the momentum of her strung-together insult. "Just what the hell is wrong with you?!"

Minato took exactly one step back. "I'm just going to go down the street to Noya's Floral." He held up his hands in a sign of surrender before peeling his loafers off the clean, white, and gray-speckled, tilted floors.

"You do that," Ino jeered at him while shaking her head. Her long platinum blonde hair moved akin to a cackled whip. Angry. Agitated. Annoyed. "Crappy, cheap flowers for your crappy, cheap tastes. How fitting."

Nice try, Ino. You over-sold it.

With his back to her, she did not see the smirk on his face. "I agree with you, you know," he threw over his shoulder, casually. The backward letters affixed to the glass of the window became the focus of his gaze. "And that's why I came here. Sakura deserves the best. But if the best won't cooperate, she'll just have to make do with Noya's. It's the thought that counts, right?"

The air was sucked out of the room by the father and daughter pair. Their collective gasp was astounding. "Sakura?!" They said at the same time—in stereo.

The acoustics in this place are great. It would make for a good intimate concert venue.

"Oh my God," Ino breathed from right next to him. She had moved quickly, leaving her father to blink in confusion in the direction of the spot she vacated—not trusting his eyes on how there were two of his daughter all of a sudden. Minato furrowed his brow at the manicured hand squeezing his forearm, wrinkling his suit. "You have to let me make her a bouquet. You have to tell me everything!" She was unaware of herself, that was clear to Minato. "Everything," she let out a high-pitched squeal.

Goddamn, Ino, not right in the ear.

Minato pressed said ear against his shoulder, wincing. "There's nothing to tell—," he countered her excitement with his lack of, "—anyone other than Sakura."

Ino, let go of his arm like her palm had been burned. "Minato," she narrowed her eyes at him. "You better not hurt her any more than you already have."

"Ino," her father called out—he too was much closer than he had been—with a warning; trying to wedge himself between the two to squarely sweep Ino behind him.

Minato's brows were raised; eyes on the woman. "Any more than I have?" He asked for clarification. His composure did not betray the effect of Ino's statement that was meant to cut. He knew her intentions.

"Don't play dumb," she kissed her teeth in anger. She was giving him more credit than he deserved. "Just know that whatever pain you cause her, I'll return it three, no, tenfold," she vowed with conviction rooted in every hair follicle on her head. She smiled, eyes instantly brightening with light. The dark storm clouds passed to reveal clear blue skies. "Lillies. Sakura loves lilies and snapdragons. She's so basic it's a little sad. Do you have any requests?" Her eyes gleamed with excitement; her voice bright and happy. Bubbly.

"Roses," he said without thinking about it or the rapid transformation that he had just witnessed. It would only lead to chaos trying to make sense of it. "Pink. And freesias."

Ino blinked, visibly caught off guard. "A little heavy-handed there don't you think?" She recovered mostly, but the frown on her pink lips spoke to something more behind her flippant question.

Not at all. A little late if anything.

Sakura was flighty. Especially when it came to this. He knew that. He had no claims to her. He had no right to her. No more than any other person—a stranger—in the world. But that was the beauty of it. He had not made himself clear. He had not been candid with her. She was unattached. There was still a chance. So it meant it was much too soon to give up especially when he had not even begun.

Nothing is lost and everything is to be gained.

Pink roses for promise. A promise that—to him—this was more than just comfort. That this was more than temporary. A promise for today and tomorrow and all the tomorrows thereafter. A promise that he was not running from this—would not run away from this; a promise he would not leave her as long as his breath did not leave him.

Walls of conviction,

Foundation built true, steady,

Forever with you.

Freesias for trust. Trust that she could put in him to do right by her. Each and every time. Trust that he would give himself completely and utterly to her. Trust that he would do as he said and deliver what he promised. Trust that her life was just as important if not more to him than his own was. Trust that he would work hard to be the man she deserved. And even if he fell well short, trust that he would keep striving for that pinnacle. Trust that each and every day he would get a little better and a little closer.

"It's better to be direct," Minato smiled warmly, playing up his obliviousness to Inoichi's severe frown and judgemental gaze. "Not leave things up to interpretation."

"Ironic," she said with an eye roll but the scowl was all but gone. "Unless you're going to back all you're saying with these flowers with actual words?" She cocked a perfectly arched brow."You know before another ten months pass?" Minato chuckled at the not-so-subtle dig, ignoring Inoichi's glower that had grown even more severe in the passage of both time and information. "Sakura can be a real slow learner with her stubbornness. She usually needs things to be repeated more than once for them to really stick." There was a story there, Minato surmised without much time spent in digging. Perhaps one of Ino's persistence in pursuing a friendship with the reserved and keeping-to-herself Haruno. After Tenten, Sakura never mentioned a friend again until Ino. The others—Lee, Amaya, Karin, Kurenai, Asuma—all came after Ino.

"I'll keep that in mind," he promised with a slight dip of his head. "Thanks, Ino."

"You're paying full price for the flowers. And extra. It's not every day someone gets an Ino Yamanaka exclusive. I'm putting them in a vase. Sakura would just stick them in a plastic justice container because she, unlike you, doesn't have taste." The woman threw her hair over her shoulder and began to walk toward the back of the store. "Oh and Daddy, I hired a guy to put up the holiday lights. He'll be here in ten minutes. I don't want to hear it." She did not bother to pause as she shared the news of yet another stranger's arrival—expected in contrast; her heels clicking all the way until she ducked behind the brown curtain.

Inoichi unclenched his locked-in-place jaw. "How good are you with your hands?"

Minato kept his mouth shut for what so clearly felt like a trick question. Why Inoichi asked him such a question and with so much charge became clear a moment later when the man had gruffly told him to follow him—Minato wondered if he should have been a little more discriminate than just blindly obeying (as if an alternative ever presented itself even remotely as an option)—to the back of the shop, up the stairs that led to what he learned was the attic and kicked a green plastic storage bin to him, revealing inside a jumbled mess.

Why does this feel like a metaphor?

"What am I looking at?" Minato asked at a complete loss for how to proceed. The Yamanaka were living up to their street reputation of playing convoluted mind games just for the hell of it.

"Holiday lights," Inoichi answered tersely, his unhappiness palpable in the rigid set of his shoulders. "You have less than ten minutes before the paid-by-the-hour guy, Ino no doubt overpaid for, gets here. You better start untangling."

"So," Minato brought a hand to the back of his head. The tubed lighting that was just slightly above their heads—they had to duck anytime they got too close—was making the room feel sweltering like a sauna. Or maybe that was all Inoichi. "Is this part of the standard purchasing process?"

Or is this the family add-on?

"Were you always this mouthy?" Inoichi asked him with his arms crossed over his chest and his back against the wooden railing that kept him from falling to the ground floor. "I don't remember you being this mouthy."

"I was six when you last saw me," he looked around, pulling a stool with his foot toward him. He undid the two buttons on his jacket before settling down on the seat and gathering the mass of green braided wire. Minato began to try to make heads and tails of it. In the back of his mind, a clock ticked down the seconds.

"I remember," Inoichi sighed deeply, it sounded almost wounded. "It was your parents' funeral." His voice was distant as the memory haunted him. Minato had been unresponsive—despondent. "Right before Shikaku took you."

Took me in, Shikaku and Yoshino took me in.

The omission of critical information was deliberate—a necessity—to curb the weight of a guilty conscience; if the man was capable of feeling anything anymore for Minato's departed family. The younger blond did not corroborate with anything beyond his silence. He had forgotten the voices, and sometimes even the faces of his parents but he remembered everything about that day and all days that followed their loss. Right down to the white chrysanthemum and peonies that filled the house. The mourning editions of his mother's favorite flowers. He pulled a knot, lengthening the line of wire at his feet. He had less concern for the delicate appearing lights in favor of speed.

Clans look after their own.

"Look, Minato, you were a kid then. You were young. What happened to you is not your fault. This life, this path it's not what your parents wanted for you. It's not what your mother, God rest her soul, wanted for you. Your old man and I were just a pair of idiots attached at the hip when we met Shikaku. We were too young to know any better. Even he was too young to understand his world. When your parents died, when Mayumi and Naoto died," he lowered his head. The words were so heavy. Draining. "Ino was a toddler. She was two going on three." She was young enough to not remember anything. She retained no memories of that stage of her life—of who was in her life. "My life was a mess—financially. The economy was in recession because of the war." No one was buying flowers unless they were for funerals. The family shop—the original one—had been in danger of defaulting. "I wasn't thinking clearly. I was still in mourning. Yumi was my favorite cousin. She was like the sister I never had. Naoto was my best friend. I introduced them. I gave her away at their wedding. It was the happiest—second happiest—day of their lives. She couldn't keep her smile contained."

Chains of shared burden,

Blood hums through similar veins—

Blood sinks down heavy.

Minato kept pulling away at the knots in the wire, straightening more and more; unraveling the mass methodically as Inoichi dug himself a deeper grave. Minato did not offer him a shovel but he also did not stop him. It was the precedent after all.

"And then Shikaku took you. Instantly. He was still not completely embedded. I told myself you would be fine. Shikaku knew of Naoto's wishes for you—the kind of life your parents built for you. Shika was your best friend. You would not be entirely alone. I didn't think that Shikagorou would stoop so low and send someone to target his own grandson."

The string that caused it all to unravel.

"Allegedly," Minato said with more harshness than he intended, his hands clenching the ball of wire and lights so tightly that the plastic groaned. Built up over time: the resentment, the what-if scenarios; just how differently his life could have been. Maybe he could have had a chance.

I could have met her almost a decade sooner.

"Minato," Inoichi was frowning. He moved closer, pulling a stool to sit across from Minato. Eye-to-eye. "You can't be that naive. Not now. Your parents' car was tampered with. That's what led them to crash. The investigators were suspicious from the beginning—that's why you never saw the life insurance money—the car engulfed in flames instantly. On impact. They never stood a chance to get out of there."

Minato's eyelids pressed together behind a golden curtain. He could picture it. He could picture their family car with two blurry faces. A woman with platinum blonde hair and a man with dirty-blond shaggy hair in a car. The black car was surrounded by angry red, yellow, and orange flames. Two pairs of eyes open; baby-blue and navy staring at him. Licks of fire danced over the glassy surfaces.

"There's no proof," Minato cleared his throat roughly, in a silent warning for all other facets of his body to fall in line—predominantly his eyes. They were not to water—they were not to show weakness. He unraveled the knot with intent focus. Hunched over and the dull ache in his shoulder reminded him to hold onto caution, lest it too become like what plagued him still. The wound had not healed properly. And maybe it never would.

"When does that mean anything with the Clans? With Akatsuki?" Inoichi whispered after glancing over his shoulder toward the stairs, eyes shifty and his hand coming to scratch at the scraggly hairs on his chin. "Shikagorou was ruthless. I knew that from the first time I met him even as a kid. He would do anything to secure his son's post."

"Even kill his only grandchild?" Minato's eyes blazed with the cold intensity of a raging ocean. Choppy and unforgiving. "How does that secure the line?"

"You're not thinking clearly," Inoichi shook his head in frustration. "Shikamaru was even more lax and lazy than Shikaku. He showed even less promise—prospect. When his time would have come, the likelihood of a coup within the Clan was high. Shikagorou cut his losses. He figured Shikaku would remarry and have another child or two. And maybe one that was better suited to stand at the mantle. You know I'm not wrong."

Maybe Inoichi had a point. There was a reason why Minato was still sitting here and it had nothing to do with the flowers being cut, prepared, and arranged for Sakura. Maybe.

"Are you armed?" The man asked, waiting with bated breath for the answer.

Minato shook his head, barely but the answer resonated.

"Minato," Inoichi said his name with urgency; his tone dangerously close to pleading. "I couldn't take you in, I couldn't protect you. I failed you, son. I failed my friend and my sister. And for that, I will hold regret in my heart for the rest of my days. But Minato, I am begging you. Stay away from my daughter. Ino is my everything. I don't want her getting rolled up in this. Please," Inoichi was holding his folded hand in front of him. The fear in his eyes was absolute. He was nothing more than a father trying to protect his daughter.

A good father. So how could Minato fault him?

Minato swallowed thickly. The lump in this throat made it painful. "I was just here for the flowers, Uncle," he addressed the man in that manner for the first time in nearly three decades. Inoichi's face became ashen. A ghost of a shadow's past. "I have no intentions of telling Ino anything." Or Sakura, because that would be one and the same.

Ino was too young to remember but not Minato—not completely. He was just old enough to never forget losing more than one home and that too in a short time. He was ripped from his whole world—the one his parents built together out of their commitment and love for each other. A bright, beautiful future reduced to nothing. Just like that. He no longer had a place anywhere.

All pictures of Mayumi Yamanaka turned Namikaze, Naoto Namikaze, and Minato Namikaze were removed from his uncle's home. His life. He knew it to be true. Inoichi had packed them up into a box and had them delivered by carrier to Shikaku's residence with a letter expressing he did not wish to see Minato again—a demand that he forget Ino who was nothing more than a faint memory. A wish played back when he was old enough to not let it completely destroy him. And for nearly twenty years, Minato honored it to the best of his abilities.

Two sets becomes four,

Fate's callous hands bestow chaos—

Paths shift, lives entwined.

"You could have gotten flowers anywhere, Minato," Inoichi pointed out what they both knew to be true, forlorn. His eyes were red although dry. He had no tears to give the man just as he had nothing to give the boy. All the same, Inoichi's throat was tickled with the melancholy of two faces that haunted him.

True. I suppose I was feeling sentimental.

Something about making peace with the past in order to move forward. Fully. Letting go did not come naturally to Minato. It was not a strength.

"Leave Sakura out of it, Minato," Inoichi had more control back in his voice—authority—he worked to extend it over the situation. "She is a good kid."

Too good for me.

"She has enough hardship and tragedy in her life."

She doesn't need to sink down with me.

Minato heard the words on the underside of Inoichi's utterances. Perhaps he understood the unspoken better than the spoken, they were after all what Inoichi truly wanted to say but it was his fondness for the child he had been—the parts of Minato that reminded Inoichi of Mayumi: gentle and soft-hearted—that held his sharp tongue back from hurling cut words that would become shards of glass in Minato's ears.

"If you care about her, Minato, walk away from her," Inoichi exhaled, the lines of his face more pronounced. It was in her best interest. "Bad things happen when you're around Akatsuki," he whispered the label like the curse it was. A cancer. "Stay away from my Ino. Stay away from Sakura."

As if it were that easy. And for Inoichi it was. Washing his hands of something was what he excelled at. Minato rose to his feet. "The shop is nice," he cleared his throat of any hesitation—weakness. "I'm sure Mom would be so happy that the house she and Dad worked so hard for and loved so much helped pay for it." He pressed his lips together to stop himself from carrying on about how shop number two's success ushered in locations number three and four within just five years. His words were measured twice and cut once to be heard. "Take care of it and yourself, Uncle. Tell Cousin Ino I'm waiting by the register." Minato did not look back.

Maybe you can finally think straight now, Uncle.

Minato did not hold his breath as his loafers slapped against the uncured wooden stairs taking him further and further away from the jumbled mess he left behind.

xXx

He saw the boy jumping down the stairs. Feet together, knees bent, and fully concentrated right before he hopped down. One at a time. A hand around each over-the-ear headphone to keep them in place. He was on the concrete landing when he stopped abruptly with a start.

Minato held up his hand. "Hey, Hiro." The boy's gaze stopped at his chin. His blond hair was more than long enough for him to recognize enough. "It's Minato. Sakura's friend," his voice and words helped carry the rest of the way to complete the partial picture to a whole one.

"I remember," Hiro muttered into the ground, covering a thin crack with the sole of his red canvas shoes with the white plastic toe vamp. "Hello," he added just as shyly as the rest of his sentence. His hands disappeared into the opening of his yellow hoodie pocket at his stomach. Hidden—tucked away from the world like Minato should be.

Being out in the open, breathing the same air she did—seeing the same things she did—complicated matters. But maybe that was fine. Maybe that was for the best. What good did watching from afar and waiting do for either of them? If Sasuke wanted her, she was here. And if Sasuke wanted him, well, he was here too.

"Did you eat dinner?" Minato asked, realizing the boy had not left yet and that spoke to something Hiro could not quite put into words.

"Mom sent over mac and cheese with cut-up hotdogs and peas. My favorite," the boy explained.

"Sounds delicious." From the corner of his eye, he caught movement. A door opening and just as quickly a dismissal of a potential threat.

"The cauliflower was gross but Sakura said I only had to eat a little because Sakura said sometimes second chances can be good." Hiro blinked twice for each syllable he produced.

"Second chances can be good," Minato repeated, allowing the words to sink into his skin so that it may settle somewhere a little more permanent.

"Hiro! What's taking you so long…oh," a woman with short brown hair seemed to forget all thought when her eyes landed on his. His face. The arrangement in his arm and back to his face. "Oh," she said with a gasp, eyes twinkling with a recognition that should not be there. "Hiro!" She scurried from the door to come to the foot of the stairs, in her haste not picking up on the fact that she was still in her house slippers. Pink. The same ones Sakura had. "Get down here!" She said through a forced smile, waving the boy to hurry it along.

The boy tilted his head to the side, his hazel-colored eyes curious.

"Hello," Amaya giggled, discreetly adjusting her hair before turning her attention to her long cardigan to do the same. "I'm Amaya. Sakura's neighbor," she giggled again. Nervous. "And friend," she added quickly. "And friend," Amaya repeated for the second time in as many seconds.

"Nice to meet you," Minato's polite smile accompanied his sentiment. "I'm—"

"Minato," she pointed to his face. "Sorry," she lowered her finger with her other hand, eyes wide in surprise at herself for cutting him off in her overeagerness. "You're Minato."

"She told you?" Minato asked with a frown. He did not know what he was more surprised about, the fact that Amaya knew about him at all or that Sakura gave out his name like that.

"Of course!" Amaya tutted, "oh," she gushed, her hazel eyes no longer on his face. "The flowers are beautiful. Sakura loves pink and red. And green!" She gestured to the bouquet. "The touches of yellow are really nice. It helps balance it all out, all the red…and the pink. And green." She smiled, fingers interlaced together. Clenching.

Hiro moved down one step with a hop. He paused. The contents of his backpack clicked and clacked together when he landed on solid ground, one step lower.

"Oh!" Amaya smacked her forehead. "Okay, so Sakura told me she met someone and that she…," her eyes darted over to her son before coming back to Minato's face. "Made a new friend," a knowing look was directed at him, all that was missing was a wink and the whole thing would have been firmly over the top. Hiro may be a kid but he was far from an idiot.

"I just don't want you to think she lied to you when you ask her about it later…if! I'm just clearing my statement. It's kind of a big deal but don't tell her that. We've been waiting a long time for Sakura to meet someone nice. Not that there's anything wrong with her! She's great. She's amazing. But you know that," she laughed with panic in her eyes. "You seem nice," she looped back around. "You brought her flowers," she gushed with an excess of exuberance. "So pretty." She balked, backtracking. "The flowers! The flowers!" She stammered. "Almost as pretty as Sakura!" She laughed again, nervous and loud.

"Mom."

Her son's monotone utterance seemed to break her out of whatever loop she had been stuck in. A manual hard reset of sorts. She raised her head from Hiro's face to Minato's. "Nice to meet you. Goodbye." She turned on her heel to walk just as quickly back into her home as she had to come out of it.

"Bye, Sakura's-friend-Minato." The little boy gave a little wave before following his mom's lead with much more measuredness.

"Bye, Hiro."

Minato shook his head to clear it of the last five or so minutes. His head was swimming with enough of his own troubles to be troubled by anything else. He moved up the stairs. The vase in his hand grew heavier and heavier, to the point the intrusive thought that he might drop it crossed his mind; followed rather quickly with if that would even be all that bad. Before he could dwell on the thought, his fist was rapting gently against the weathered white paint of her door. It opened without him having to knock twice.

Bright green eyes stared up at him timidly. "Hi," she said, voice containing warmth.

"Hi," he said back.

She smiled and that had him almost fumbling the vase on account of his hands turning slick with clamminess. A strike to the center—slightly to the left—of his chest he had not anticipated.

xXx

"I can't believe you got my flowers," she beamed at him as she set them down on the dining table. Glass on marble. "Sit, sit," she ushered him into the chair, not giving him much choice. Between her and the plates set at the table, it would be rude to walk away now.

"What's all this?" He asked as his hand moved in a practiced motion of undoing his suit jacket's buttons. He sat down. He could smell the aromas in the kitchen. It was decidedly more spice diverse than what Hiro described and he had come to expect.

"Dinner," Sakura grinned at him with pride. "And before you get worried or reach for the anti-acid pills or milk, Hiro helped. He made sure I didn't overseason. I promise. He hid the salt and forgot to share where it was before leaving so if there's not enough of it, we're going to have to ask Ms. Honda for some," she blabbered because he failed to realize before right now, that he was the first adult she talked to all day. And that too only the second person overall face-to-face.

"Sakura, you didn't have to go through all this trouble." He had caught the pots and pans in the sink and on the stove. There were at least five of them between the two places. And while he could not see what was right in front of him due to the dome covers she had over his and her plates. Covers she must have ordered recently because he did not remember seeing them when the cabinets were reorganized last week.

"You didn't have to get me flowers," she undid the tie of her apron. The one with the sunflower on it. "Thank you. They're so pretty." She turned off the dials of the stove. She moved to sit down across from him.

He waited until she settled. "I'm glad you like them," his smile was soft.

"I do," she breathed, touching the delicate petals of a rose. "They go so well together. Wow."

"Do you know what they symbolize?"

"Hm?" She blinked in surprise, broken from her stupor of pure admiration. "The flowers?" She shook her head, rubbing her arm. "No. I just ignore Ino when she drones on this kind of stuff. It's not really my thing."

His heart sank at her admission. The flowers were supposed to be the second form of confirmation. Corroboration of his words. Without them…. Ino's words which now sounded like a warning rang in his head, ominous.

"Actually," Sakura slipped out of her chair, coming back fully into view. "Mind waiting just a minute?" She smiled sweetly. She held up her index finger. "Just one minute."

Like I could say no to you.

For the most part, when she was not adamant about throwing herself in harm's way.

"Sure," he nodded his head and returned her smile. Polite. He watched her leave; disappointment rising in him. The seconds passed like minutes as he waited. He may or may not have gazed bitterly at the arrangement that really was beautiful but ultimately failed to live up to its true purpose.

Her footsteps reached his ears. He looked over his shoulder, a hand on the back of his chair. He inhaled suddenly, too far gone to tell himself it was not that noticeable. She smiled—shy—tucking hair behind her ear and training her eyes to the linoleum floors.

"You changed," he noted lamely in response to the sky-blue dress she was wearing. Flowy and at the knee. Tied at the nape of her neck. Flattering. And completely unsuited for the winter. Not that it mattered. Because if she told him then and there that it was spring, he would believe her. Blindly.

Small studs caught the light and his eye. "You look nice," he shared his watered-down sentiment.

"So do you," she stood perpendicular to his place setting. "You're wearing your suits again. Must be a good thing, right? Your shoulder is not bothering you all that much," She mused in a voice light with air and free of prospect. "I hung the ones that were on the back of the couch this morning in the closet, in case you're wondering where your bags are."

He was not. This morning felt like it was days ago and that too not in a bad way. He was just not bogged down by the conversations—confrontations—of the spent hours.

"I had some time and willing help, so I thought I would try my hand at dinner. It's nothing fancy. At least food-wise. I thought I would make up for it with the ambiance. That didn't go exactly to plan either. I couldn't find candles that weren't the kind that go on cakes. Not that I even own candle holders. But it's just as well, they would've detracted from the flowers," she continued to overshare. He did not mind. He could listen to her talk about nothing for hours. She lowered something on the table. It was a box. Dark green with hand-painted gold lines as a trim.

"What's this?" He asked slowly, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Open it," came her soft reply.

With fluid movements that hid his trepidation, Minato gathered the box and pulled the lid up. "Cufflinks?"

"Hm. I saw them the other day when I was out with Ino and they reminded me of your eyes, especially when you're really thinking or talking about something that you care about," she held her bottom lip—smeared with light pink lipstick—between her canine teeth. "Like Shika," her words were a whisper. "I hope you don't mind."

He could not form a coherent thought, much less a sound in response to her question. He was thoughtless. Motionless. A loss for it all. He could only blink mutely when her small hands came into the picture.

"May I?" She asked, her lips barely moved. Her pink lashes fluttered lazily, her gaze on the sapphire pools.

"You may," he managed, which was a more difficult feat than it should have been; maybe it had something to do with the fact that he was staring at her—taking full advantage of her preoccupation.

She removed one of the cufflinks from the backing. With the same sureness, she inspected his stitches every morning, and again every night, she inserted the square into his sleeve. He did not even have the presence of mind to help her when she did the same thing for his other one.

This suit jacket isn't the right cut for them.

The fabric of the jacket was bunched, awkwardly. "They suit you," she said matter-of-factly, gently trying to tug the sleeve of his crisp white shirt back into place, past his navy jacket sleeve. She patted the back of his hand in surrender before she pulled back the cover that hid his plate to reveal grilled salmon, mashed potatoes, roasted green beans, and a small dressed salad of mixed greens. It smelled and looked amazing. He licked his lips, words escaping him still.

She moved to reclaim her seat. "So pretty," she gushed at what surely had to be the flowers at the level of appreciation in her voice. He could not be sure, the arrangement blocked his view of her. "Let's eat!" She said with excitement.

Minato touched his hand to the present. His throat tightened with something he was not used to. It was not unpleasant. Just foreign. The tightness did not even let him work out a word to say just how delicious everything was.

"So the new season is out for our show, I was thinking we could binge-watch it tonight or save half of it for tomorrow because…," her voice pattered on. Like drops of rain hitting metal shingles. The warmth from the distinct sources: the furnace, the kitchen, the food, and her, eased away all the weight of burden. Minato relaxed fully—clearing his mind of anything not related to the now—listening on with a dopey smile on his face, uncaring just how much of a dork he must have seemed to anyone else.

Perfection.

He was engrossed in what he was watching, the fact that he did not notice her walk through the bedroom door and into what had to be the world's shortest hallway that led to the living room said it all. He was completely teleported away. Having his headphones in helped, she supposed.

So much for being vigilant. This will not do, Minato Namikaze. It's time you learned an important lesson.

A sly smile stretched on her lips. She folded her hands behind her back—restraining them from doing something stupid like wrapping them around his neck or catching on something and alerting him to her presence—she pushed up onto her toes and moved as quietly as she could. Her teeth held down her bottom lip and her snickers all at once. She crouched down the closer she got. Her shoulders were shaking slightly by the time she made it to duck behind the accent chair. The very one he was sitting on.

With a slow inhale, Sakura expanded her lungs. She shot to her feet. "Minato!" She called out his name loudly. Right behind his ear.

He jumped. He jumped up from his seat and quickly closed the laptop. Even before looking around. She had rounded over to his right just as he was pulling out his headphones.

"Sakura," he said her name with the clear impact of his adrenaline surging through him. Like he had just come up for air after a deep ocean dive.

"Did I…," she was unable to continue on account of a laugh that erupted from her throat. She pointed at his red face. "Did I just catch you watching porn?" She grabbed her stomach at the aghast, deer-in-head-lights look that stared back at her. Devoid of all thought. It was just getting better and better. "Oh my god!" A giggle that transformed into a snort that she was too giddy for any chance at embarrassment. "I did! I totally did. I knew that was why you downloaded the VPN!" Her accusation was without heat or credibility but that did not stop her from being greatly amused. Her hands clapped together in glee in satisfaction of a mystery solved.

You're so red. It's adorable.

"It's," he shook his head. Excessively in adamant—vehement—denial. "It's not porn," he denied, not all that convincingly despite his intentions and efforts.

"Right," she rolled her eyes, dabbing at the edges to collect the tears. Her face was pink with remnants of her delight. Now she was just smug. "Must not have gotten to the good part yet," she tilted her head towards the room. "Maybe the timing worked out. The shower is all yours," she chirped with her hands behind her back and innocence coating her words. She took much too much pleasure than she would have at watching him duck his head and slink toward the bedroom, like a dog with his tail between his legs.

She tapped her foot, glancing over her shoulder with what she believed to be nonchalance—she missed the mark but there were no witnesses to attest to the fact. She waited for the sound of the water to register before she grabbed her computer and sank into a cushion—absorbing his trapped heat—her legs crossed under her. The remains of the smile slipped off her face at the video that was paused on the screen. It more or less confirmed what was quickly becoming her new biggest fear. Her stomach flipped and not in a good way.

How to communicate more effectively and productively in a relationship. How to get your partner to hear what you actually are saying and not what they think you are saying.

A lecture by Dr. Atsuko Kanda, a PhD in relationship psychology.

This coupled with the flowers loaded with meaning—meaning she knew all too painfully in theory at the very least—had her thinking it would have been a hundred times better to just have caught him watching porn.

Shit.

She moved her finger in zigzags over the tiny red holes where the sutures had been. She inspected each one closely. She tilted her head, her nose brushed against his collarbone.

"Sakura," he said with beginnings of impatience—the vast expanse of his patience being crossed and left behind.

"It's the tattoos," she hushed him with a hand on his other shoulder to steady herself. "They're making it that much harder," she explained the reason for the delay.

Minato nearly groaned at her poor choice of words. He kept his hands to himself, and his head draped against the back of the couch but even then she was all he could smell and feel.

"Maybe we should take this downstairs," he offered weakly and without hope as she seemed rather comfortable. His resolve and composure were being tested. The cold clinical setting would help. He believed.

"I'm almost there," she murmured softly, shifting her weight in pursuit of a better angle. Allegedly. That was what he assumed based on context clues.

He cursed himself for agreeing to her offer to just take care of it here. She had cited saving her the trouble of having to disinfect and clean the clinic. It had made sense when she suggested it. But that was back before she was in his lap with her plaid dress bunched up at her hips and her long, creamy legs out for full view. Look but do not touch. Do not look too much because…. This was far from a clinical environment. Her soft thighs were just right there on either side of his narrow hips, waiting for his fingers to dig into the supple and plentiful flesh. It was the dead of winter. If he thought her shorts that kept getting shorter were bad before…he realized now that some length was better than none at all.

Not suitable in the slightest.

"Sakura," he let out a huff.

"If you cooperate this will go so much smoother," she reprimanded him with her words while her fingers caressed his skin. The woman was nothing but contradictions. She moved yet again, settling herself on his thigh, bracketing it with both her legs.

She's doing this on purpose.

"Tell me about your back piece."

He blinked in surprise, raising his head to look at her but she was the picture of professional—in her gaze and hands at least—the rest of her pressed up against him was more suspect.

"It was my first. I really didn't know what to expect," he could only attach words of honesty to the memory. He heard stories sure but it was far from a cohesive picture. He knew he needed the clan crest—his brand—and that too had to be on his front. So he focused on what he could control, choose, the blank canvas of his back. A clean slate to be filled.

"How long did it take?"

His hand went around her waist instinctively when she leaned too far back, almost losing her balance. His fingertips could feel her warmth through her thin shirt. The only barrier between his hand and her skin.

Is this why you have the thermostat to seventy-five? So you can torment me with the least amount of clothes possible.

He posed and answered his own query.

She thanked him for his consideration with a warm breath. "How long?" She asked again. The side of her face practically pressed up against his bicep as she inspected the site.

"Seventy hours. Roughly." He breathed through his mouth. It was not helping. Not even remotely. He could taste vanilla in the back of his throat.

"Wow," she stared at him stunned. Blinking and blinking as she gawked unabashedly, forgetting, momentarily, the very thing that brought them so close. Physically. "So for basically six days' worth of time you just sat there with the feeling of being stabbed over and over by a tiny, high-speed needle that sounds like a swarm of bees?"

It was relaxing, the sound of the machine.

He chuckled despite the intention behind her words and what they implied. She thought he was a headcase. Maybe she was not too far off. Between their schedules, it was well over two and a half months between start and completion. "The outlining took the longest. The artist—Haku—is a perfectionist. They had to make sure everything was perfect. They are the best for a reason." The best for fine line work and color—only one of which had been Minato's requirements. Haku talked him into getting color after showing him the two renditions with and without.

"Haku?" She frowned at why the name was so familiar. Green eyes rolled up to the ceiling, narrowing in concentration to bridge the gap between the name and the placement. "Oh, Ino showed me some of their designs back when she was trying to convince me to get my first tattoo with her!" Of the time Sakura had held Ino's hand while the blonde-haired woman got a narrow and thin—a purple bush clover blossom, the flower associated with her clan—but a very detailed flower along the outer edge of her arm. Ino had screamed like no other, almost throwing up when the needle first came into contact with her skin. The reaction was extreme for a woman whose ears were without space for another piercing. Haku had been great. Very patient and encouraging, and doing frequent check-ins. They never made it seem like their appointment slot went over by more than fifty-three minutes. "I didn't know they were affiliated with Akatsuki."

"They aren't," Minato's hand trailed up the curve of her spine slowly, of its own volition. He was still but a man despite the iron he steeled himself within. "I asked them to do it for me—I put out my proposal for the design. They agreed."

"The Clan let you?" Sakura asked, every bit as surprised as she was intrigued.

"It's my body that was going to be marked. They can mandate that—along with what I can't get—but they couldn't force me to use their artist. It just had to get done. Discreetly. And it did," he sighed, palm flat against her back.

"Did it hurt?" She asked a little self-consciously. "Haku numbed you?"

"No," he lowered his voice in direct proportion to the distance closing. "There was no need to. I even fell asleep more than once. It was a little uncomfortable in only some places." Index and middle fingers moved from the base of her neck down her spine, denoting the spots he remembered were the most painful with a couple of gentle taps. "Especially when it was being filled in."

"You must really have a high tolerance," she sighed, looking none-to-happy about the fact. Just because he did not register pain, it did not mean that he was not hurt. "Have you ever gotten a brain scan?" She asked with an innocence that he learned to not trust. It was her greatest weapon in disarming a friend or foe.

"Have you heard of the sage toads?" He deflected with practiced poise.

"From that folk legend right? Mount Mybookie?" She blinked, her jade-colored eyes becoming lighter with curiosity.

"Mount Myōboku," he smiled softly at the slightly confused look on her face. It was made even more adorable by her pout and slight flush of her embarrassment. He smoothed down the lines on her forehead with the pad of his thumb. They gave way under his attention. Melting. "My dad was really into that kind of stuff. Instead of nursery stories, I grew up hearing about the sage toads that saved the world. I have the whole collection of books back in my quarters. Gamabunta, Gamahiro, and Gamaken, the warriors of Mount Myōboku. They were my favorite."

"Naturally," she rolled her eyes in a playful manner. Leaning even closer still. The movement was gradual over the course of the conversation. A pull of magnetism that neither of them could resist for too long even if they wanted to. "And the Sakura tree?"

"It matched the color scheme," he grinned easily, eyes crinkling with mirth. He could not take credit for that particular piece. "Haku took some artistic license with my poorly described vision."

"They did a great job," she said with open admiration. "And that's coming from someone who's indifferent to tattoos." She made a face full of self-directed judgment. "Okay, tattoos aren't my thing. Usually," she finished with a sigh.

"Usually?" He pried gently, fingers tapping against the curve of her arched spine.

"They," she moved her eyes and hands down his arms, green irises sweeping his chest. Her pink lip was being agitated by her white teeth, hesitation and worry palpable. "They're just Minato," she huffed, unsatisfied with her lackluster explanation—unable to put it into words of her own or borrowed.

It warmed his heart nonetheless. "So I don't need to look into getting them removed?"

She froze on top of him; hand twitching against his pectoral—her palm had covered the Nara Clan symbol in a coincidence that felt more like a premonition. "What?" She asked dumbfounded—mouth agape. Breath frozen in place in her lungs.

"I'm going to get out, Sakura," he said softly like it was a secret, as it was. One of his many.

"What?" She repeated, head shaking. She laughed, a little unstable in more ways than one. "Minato, if you're saying that to get in my pants, you don't need to. I've been coming onto you pretty strong—"

"Sakura," he said her name firmly with his hands on her hips, expression stern. He would not be moved by her attempt at deflection. A defense he knew to see through. "I want to get out," his gaze bore into hers. "I will get out. I'm done."

Done. He spoke—carried himself—with finality. It was written in stone. His stony visage still somehow retained the warmth of heat. His eyes locked on her. Her and only her. The same intensity. The same something that was different about him that she could not quite place. It was always in the room, always just there when he was. Sometimes tucked under layers of smiles, jokes, and playfulness. The way he looked at her…no one looked at her like that before. Not even him.

The hush-hush of change,

Light smiles fade, shadows deepen—

Hearts forge heavy.

"Minato," she whispered his name, not without fear. "Will they even let you?" She whispered her trepidation in a simple question that she believed to not have a simple answer. Her hands moved to rest on his shoulders. Soft. Warm. Secure.

"They will," he countered her timidness with his conviction. "They will." He searched her face. Mapping the curve of her cheek with his eyes, for the time being, suspended in limbo of her potential reaction. "What are you thinking?" He asked, voice soft and eyes dark.

"I think," she lowered her gaze before turning her head away entirely. Hope was held by the delicate silk of a spider's web. A gale of wind—one misunderstanding—was enough to sever it forever, leaving them without any means of establishing what was lost.

"You don't have to say anything now," he cursed his impatience and the pressure it brought. "It's a lot. I didn't even plan on telling you until it was a done deal but—"

"Why did you tell me?" She asked into the open air everywhere he did not occupy space.

He stared at her, taken aback by the question. "Because I have feelings for you, Sakura," he pushed the words through his rapidly constricting throat. Just open enough for him to breathe but even that was painful. He hissed in surprise. The burn of alcohol filled his nose.

"Did that hurt?" She asked him apologetically, eyes low on her hands that worked diligently to clean the incision wounds.

"It stings," he admitted.

"I'm sorry," she apologized before she reached down to press a ghost of a kiss to his cheek. By the time his lashes fluttered closed, she had pulled away. "Did that make it better?"

"Yeah," he lied.

"Good," she patted his already dry shoulder before climbing out of his lap, taking her warmth back and away along with her. "You're all better now." She moved to gather the dish containing his sutures and the other various things she had used.

"I'll make popcorn."

She hummed in thanks as he walked past her to the kitchen, shoulders tense and teeth pressed against each other in a bite that his father would strongly disapprove of.

Endless cycles spin,

Dreams flicker in the silence—

Whispers, "Try again".

She held the brown grocery bag to her hip, lifting up a leg to be a makeshift table to keep it from slipping to the floor and crushing her eggs in the process. Sakura let out a soft sound. "I should have gotten my keys out first," she chided herself as she fumbled around for them in her black purse. She should have splurged for the organizer insert too.

Hinges groaned and complained to her right. She was already donning a smile long before she even looked up. The black letters of 2D grew smaller and smaller.

"Sakura, dear?" The gentle, warm, and comforting voice of her elderly neighbor filled her ears. "Need some help?"

"Yes, please," she chuckled sheepishly. "My keys, Ms. Honda," she held out her arm that her bag was slung over.

The woman shuffled over after closing her own door. She lowered her glasses from the top of her head to the tips of her nose. The chain with pearls that they were attached to swung back and forth.

"Let's see here," she breathed out audibly. Wisps of silver gray here curled close to her head. Ms. Honda slept in soft rollers. "They make the zippers on these things so small," she reached for the gold zipper with arthritic hands.

"I'm so sorry for the trouble," Sakura sighed apologetically.

"Nonsense, dear. Neighbors have to look out for one another you know," she pulled the zipper back. She moved her hands searching for the lanyard. "Ah," she exclaimed in triumph, she moved her wrist back and forth. The keys chimed.

"Thank you," Sakura's voice was bright. She moved back from the door to give Ms. Honda more room to operate. "Please come inside. I'll make some hot chocolate." It was downright nippy still despite the passing of another new year more than a couple of months ago.

"I shouldn't," Ms. Honda seemed as rooted in her convictions about as still as flowing water was.

"I insist," Sakura gave her the last small push needed with wiggling brows.

"Twist my arm," the woman threw up her hands with a shared chuckle and followed Sakura into the small home. She removed her shoes from the rack just as Sakura had peeled off her sandals. "It smells nice in here."

"I picked up some candles the other day," Sakura explained on her way to the small kitchen. "They are supposed to be relaxing."

"That's good," Ms. Honda mused, moving at a noticeably slower pace. "Your hair has gotten very long dear."

"It grows really fast," Sakura hummed in agreement. Her hand migrated to the black band that sat at the nape of her neck. "I'm thinking of cutting it. It's going to be unbearable in the summer."

"Just around the corner," the woman tutted. "You're always so busy in the summer."

"Kids are out of school. People are going outside," Sakura left it at that. Ms. Honda was smart enough to fill in the gaps.

The woman sat in the dining table chair as Sakura moved to put her groceries in the pantry and fridge. "Time goes by the blinks."

Sakura chuckled. "The older I get the more wise you become, Ms. Honda." She turned around with a plate full of cookies. "A snack before the coco." She set it on the table.

"Oh dear, Sakura," Ms. Honda eyed the plate with hunger. "You are going to get me in trouble."

"I won't tell if you don't," Sakura promised solemnly. The wink just ruined the illusion of proper conduct.

"Mr. Honda is not as understanding as that Minato of yours," the woman teased, pointing a cookie at the pinkette with a knowing expression. "He's such a nice boy," she hummed with approval, her voice containing her fondness.

"Minato?" Sakura furrowed her brow as she racked her brain to only come up short. "When did you meet—" she turned her head at the clattering of something. "Ms. Honda!" She called out, raising her eyes from the fallen plate. Shattered.

"Oh dear," Ms. Honda held her face in her hands. "I'm so sorry, Sakura. I made a mess."

"It's okay," Sakura assured her with an outstretched arm. "Are you alright?" She asked worriedly as her eyes moved to triage any visible injuries. So far she just found embarrassment. "It was an accident, it's okay. The most important thing is no one was hurt," she continued to placate and appease. "I'll get this cleaned up and have a new plate of cookies out for us." She crouched down to begin cleaning.

"Oh, Sakura dear. You really are so sweet," Ms. Honda's voice called out from above.

"It's nothing—"

"And naive. So naive."

Sakura furrowed her brow, her hands stopped moving to pick up shards of sea-blue porcelain. Ms. Honda's voice was from behind her. Her eyes widened and filled with shock. The collected pieces fell to the floor. Sakura's hands went to her neck. She could not breathe.

"So trusting," Ms. Honda taunted, squeezing the life out of her in a grip that should have been beyond her. "So stupid."

Sakura's eyes snapped open. She blinked in the darkness; her person covered in sweat. Her heart was beating so rapidly that she could hear it loudly in her ears. Thump. Thump. Thump. She registered the arm coiled around her waist. She inhaled slowly, counting the seconds. Her heartbeat settled. She raised her eyes. His head was tilted slightly down. His breathing was slow. She fought the temptation to touch his soft hair because if she gave in, she would disturb the peaceful picture.

Her chest was heavy with crushing pressure. A weight she had been carrying since learning of Haruto Nara. A weight that had been steadily increasing. A weight that made it hard to breathe. A weight she wanted to shed. Without a witness. Without judgment. Without being left alone to her own self-destructive devices.

She nestled closer to the warmth, to the sturdy arms, to the slow breathing, to the soft crown of shaggy, sunshine-yellow hair. "Minato?" She whispered, barely. Her warm breath tickled his pores. "Are you sleeping?" She asked, with slightly slurred words due to her donned nightguard, again for confirmation of what was right in front of her and her interpretations of it. "I have something I want to say to you."

I have a lot of somethings. Too many somethings.

She blinked slowly, waiting for something to change all the while knowing that if it was his state, she would lose her nerve—that she may never find again.

I don't know how to say it the way other people do. I do not know how to be open like others. I only know what I feel for you, I have never felt for another. That is all I know. I hope you can recognize what I cannot say.

"Fragile heart whispers,

Feelings bloom beyond my words—

See me. Hear unspoke," she recited Sumida from the works held together in the well-worn orange spine of Minato's father's book. "I have feelings for you too," she admitted to his sleeping form which she could not to his conscious counterpart. Her voice was hoarse from sleep and her terror. "I'm just scared. And I don't know what I'm doing. Please be patient with me." She moved closer and breathed him in. "Please," she murmured softly, eyelids falling heavily as she drifted back to sleep, missing the slow smile that stretched across his lips.

"Well?" She stared at him expectantly, face very close to his as he chewed. Personal space was but a notion that she did not prescribe to. "I'm on pins and needles here!" She showed him her goosebumps—shoving an arm under his nose. Her legs were folded under her, her arm across the back of the couch cushion. She was holding a cardboard container in her other hand with her chopsticks held against the edge with her thumb.

"Even cold," he spoke only after chewing completely. "The noodles have good chew and body. The sauce is well-balanced. The meat is cooked per—"

"Minato," she huffed, "stop stalling, already. Please," she whined. "Admit it, you know you want to," her voice lilted with temptation. Sultry.

"Tani has better food than Yuma," Minato admitted begrudgingly.

"Thank you!" She cheered—rejoicing—throwing an arm up in pure validation. Fist held tight in victory. "Welcome to the dark side," she grinned from ear to ear, shameless. "Was that so hard?" She mocked because she was not a gracious winner by any means.

"I feel dirty," he made a face that was close enough to a pout. Minato reached out and swiped at the corner of her mouth with his thumb, sucking the sauce from the appendage.

"Gross," she wrinkled her nose, drawing even more attention to the reddening of her cheeks.

"Agree to disagree," he sighed deeply, flattening his bangs to his forehead. He really needed that haircut. Yesterday. "Anything else to make me question the cornerstones of my belief?"

"You're annoying when you're cheeky," she pinched his cheek for emphasis. "But also cute."

"I'm not cute," he protested, huffily.

She laughed poking his side with zero regard for consequence. "Oh my God. You are," she found the sensitive spot at his navel, earning herself a grunt of disgruntlement. "You so are."

"Sakura," he warned.

"Absolutely, downright, adorable. Like pudgy baby arms and legs adorable," she piled on with abandon, teetering closer and closer to the heat of the fire she was disrespecting. "Big head, big-eyed rottie puppies adorable. Baby monkeys in dia-pers!" She let out a breathy giggle. "M-Minato!" She glared at him with indignation at the fingers teasing her side. "Stop!" She laughed, doubling over. He had moved her food to the table because he was thoughtful even when he was being annoying. "S-stop," she commanded without authority, breathlessly. "T-t-tic—," she dissolved into a fit of giggles.

"Take it back, Sakura," he grinned down at her, fingers working for evil. "Take it back," he taunted.

She was a wriggling mess of loud panting breaths. "M-Minato," she panted out his name in a shattered breath. "P-please," she begged. She would throw up if he kept up his ruthless onslaught. Or pee her pants. She did just down a whole glass of iced tea. It was a ways away, the need to relieve herself, but she was not above weaponizing it to her benefit—her freedom.

"Take it back," he carried on, indifferent to the tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. She had to learn.

"Ok-ay," she inhaled shakily, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Okay," she breathed loudly, with her arms wrapped around her torso. Protectively.

Minato sat back on his heels. He waited with his arms still bent menacingly. Her chest heaved up and down. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair fanned around her. Her head rested against the curved arm of the couch.

"Well?" He prompted with expectation etched onto his visage.

One of Sakura's arms darted out. She grabbed him by the middle of his shirt, dragging him down for a searing kiss. A kiss that had him closing his eyes and forgetting everything but the shape of her mouth at that moment. A mouth that she was licking the corner of, right before she reclaimed her station, biting down on his lip to gain entry with force that she would have been given happily if she had asked nicely. But he was in no position to complain, not when she was sucking on his tongue so eagerly.

"That—" she panted breathlessly with her lips still against his; his head spinning, "—is how you clean a mouth." Her thumb wiped away the excess saliva from the very thing in question as she said the words.

He laughed, shaking his head. She chased after his lips. Her eyes were heavy and dark. Determined. "Bedroom?" He asked, voice husky.

"The fact that you even asked," she scowled. With an exasperated eye roll, Sakura pushed him back until he was sitting upright. Minato got the hint. He stood, pulling her to him by the wrist attached to the hand that never broke contact from his chest. She wrapped her legs around his torso so he could transport them both because walking seemed like way too much work—an unnecessary expenditure of energy. "I have my work cut out for me," she breathed into the shell of his ear, twisting a hand in his hair. She flattened herself against his hard planes. She was not concerned about leaving room for air.

"Then you better get to it, teacher," he bit her ear, working his way down from there to nip her neck, pressing his canine against her fluttering pulse.

"Not out in the open," she warned him sharply, pulling back just enough to convey her seriousness with her stem eyes.

"Afraid your boyfriend will find out?" He asked roughly, his hands squeezing her butt, hard enough to bruise.

She glared at him. "Seriously?" She scoffed in disbelief. "You're bringing him into this?"

Again?

"Now?" her departed tone spoke that she believed him to be a fool—an idiot.

"Do you see me laughing?" He returned, barely blinking, expression blank but his stormy eyes betraying his inclination.

"I," her cheeks were red with her indignation at the open challenge. Her lip curled upwards revealing a snarl. She could not believe he could think such a thing much less ask her as close to point-blank as she would get from him. These were his terms and conditions necessary in the pursuit of consent.

"I may have put the dress on because of him," her hands went to pull at her hair trying to straighten out the knots because her thoughts were a mess. "But," she breathed through her nose, avoiding just about everything up until now. Now was not good enough. "He's not the one I was thinking about when I bought it or while I wore it," she raised her eyes to his without wavering.

Steady.

"Who did you think about when you bought it, Sakura? Who did you think about while you wore it?" He asked, his voice low and textured with grit and gravel.

"I saw you first," she admitted everything that needed such with a shudder, her face and neck bright red with blush. It was spreading to the visible part of her decollete with the aid of the top three undone buttons. His intensity—or expectation—did not wane one bit. All that was communicated by the unsaid was unsatisfactory in the realm of his domain; the domain that enthralled her so that she was completely unaware when she was ensnared.

Captive.

Cobalt. His eyes were the first things she saw of his. Then she saw the rest of him. Every bit as beautiful as his eyes.

Without care, gaze met—

Lost track breath, time, and account,

Led by hand to ruin.

"You're going to make me spell it out for you?" She asked him, face hot enough to melt her skin from her like dripping wax. Navy irises seemed committed to reducing her to an entity so small that she could be captured in the individual curves of his blue-pigmented furrows. So that she would forever be a part of him. Not a terrible fate if someone ever asked and she felt generous enough to share.

"Yes," he said without blinking—without a sense of shame.

"I take it back," she grumbled, glaring at him without heat because he took all of hers and replaced it with his. There was no means of control for her. "You really aren't cute, M-I-N-A-T-O," she spelled out explicitly in a tone that was decidedly playing up the obnoxiousness. Because that was exactly what he was being. He started it.

Minato reached a hand back, wrapping it around one of her ankles to break the link at his waist—so quickly that she did not even have time to think—all so he could drop her on the bed unceremoniously. Sakura made a sound of surprise just as the second bounce of the mattress was not as violent as the first. She shoved her hair from her face with a sweep of her arm, revealing eyes the color of emeralds in their lividness, with a snarl.

"Hey! You listen here—," the rest of her sentiment died in her throat. She gulped at the way he was looking at her, already having shed his shirt—her eyes were drawn to the shimmering koi against the ocean of intricately drawn black. His intent was clear, daring her to stop him—to oppose the will he wanted to enforce. His eyes were so dark she could not differentiate between navy and obsidian. A thrill went down her spine to curl her toes.

Games played, rules unsaid,

Your depths pull me deeper still,

Dare do I not, you.

"Thank you for noticing," he said right before climbing on top of her agonizingly slow—each ripple of muscle not missed by her sharp eye—tearing at the rest of the buttons that kept her shirt dress closed. The plastic and red and black flannel groaned with strain just as bothered by plight as the body they wrapped.

It was a good thing that the garlic noodles tasted even better cold because right now, Minato was really, really hot.

xXx

"I don't want to see anyone else," she said, breaking the silence left behind by their departed pants—breaths caught and controlled—not pausing from tracing the lines and patterns on his chest. Her head rested against his shoulder. Skin warming skin.

"Good," Minato addressed candidly. "I don't want to see anyone else either," he did not hesitate to follow her sentiment with his own. Shared and bound. His hand playing with her hair. He felt her smile pull across her cheek. With a slight movement of her head—never lifting or breaking away—she left a kiss on his sternum.

"Good," she said, her foot moving up the bone of his shin. "Give me another one."

He closed his eyes. Head cradled by the palm of his hand. The pillows were scattered on the floors. Forgotten and unconcerned with.

"Knew not of warmth past,

Enraptured by forgery—

Awake, I now see," he shared, lashing pulling apart to reveal dark eyes cast with the shadow of the room's dark.

"Hm," Sakura parted her lips with a soft click. "That was a good one." She nestled deeper, sighing in contentment. "Does Sasori know?" She raked her fingers.

"He does," he inhaled deeply—slowly. "Him and Shika's cousin—Rihito. The Professor and his wife. They're the only ones."

"And me," she reminded.

"And you." He smiled.

"I'm glad I know."

"I'm glad you know too." His hand migrated to her hip. "Another?" He asked after some moments offered away to the soft silence.

"Another," she answered lazily, stifling a yawn.

Minato's lips moved. Sakura's ears listened. Time stood still.

"Do you have to?" She asked him, making herself as hard to leave as she possibly could, staring up at him with big green eyes; hiding her growing unease behind the playful register of her voice.

When did I become so clingy?

Overnight seemingly. Her eyes fluttered closed when his warm lips pressed against the center of her forehead. She hummed in contentment, wrapping her hands around his forearms.

"I really," he pressed another kiss, "need to go."

She groaned, opening her eyes and pouting at him. "I'm going to be so bored," she whined shamelessly now.

"I'll be back, Sakura," he placated her. "Before you know it."

"But I miss you already," she hooked a finger into the inside of his coat jacket pocket. She rotated on her hips, twisted slightly from side to side. The face of misery she wore was very convincing.

"Really?" He asked with a smile he could not contain, not that he cared to.

"Really," she nodded her head earnestly. "So much," she added with a layer of pitifulness.

He pressed his thumb to her chin, gently tilting it back. She pushed up to her toes. Eyes closed and mouth parted in anticipation. His lips found hers. She melted against him. Arms around his neck. His around her waist. They rocked slightly.

Drawers were being pulled roughly in the kitchen. Slammed with force. Sakura peeled open an eye. Minato bit back a groan. "What are you looking for Sasori?" She asked him around Minato's arm. Her face rested against his bicep. Maybe she could expedite the process and the aggressive, nerve-grating background music would stop. One could hope.

"An ice cream scoop," Sasori murmured, continuing on his quest. "To scoop out my eyes so I don't have to see this. One of you will have to fill my ears with embalming fluid. You have some of that downstairs right, Doc?" He looked up at her red face.

When will you learn, Sakura, to leave crazy well enough alone?

"Sakura's not an undertaker, Hora," Minato answered for her, sparing Sakura from having to grace the statement with a comment because Sasori was nothing if not persistent.

"Well if the two of you keep that up, she might have to be. Unless I kill you both and make puppets out of your carcasses," Sasori drawled in a monotone as he waved the scoop back and forth lazily. "I liked you better when you were just eye-screwing each other."

"Hora," Minato narrowed his eyes in a clear warning that he was rapidly approaching the line. His usual philosophy of ignoring it until it went away did not have a place here.

"Oh my God," Sakura hid her burning face in Minato's chest, mortified.

"Ignore him, Sakura. Don't listen to what he says," he advised with a practiced ease. In acceptance of such proven and tested advice, they ignored the redhead man's disingenuous murmur of "sorry."

"What's his deal with puppets?" Sakura's question came out muffled against the layers of silk, needing a distraction. Maybe then her ears would forget how to burn.

"Not so loud," Minato said in a hushed voice. His hands moved up and down her back. "You'll lose two hours of your life and all you'll be left with is being creeped out."

"Maybe I should let Ino meet him," Sakura peered up at him. "It's a cry for help."

"It is if you think Ino is the answer," he grinned which quickly turned into a hiss. He brought a hand to his throbbing side.

"That's my best friend you're defaming."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Sakura," he brushed the hair from her face. "You look beautiful."

"Do I?" She batted her eyelashes. She pranced on her toes, drawing attention to her legs clad in sheer black tights under her red off-the-shoulder, wool dress—thanks to whom, the thermostat read a sane sixty-eight degrees.

"So beautiful," he bent down to kiss her just as she rose up.

"Yep, I'm definitely killing you both," Sasori twirled the pocket knife in his hand. "Whose first?" He held it open in his palm, moving it between the two of them in a deranged, silent game of eeny meeny miny moe.

"Who told you to come up?" Minato asked him with irritation, the rosy, flowery cloud of haze being diluted with his mere presence.

"You did," he countered with slow blinks and zero emotion. "Twenty minutes ago. But you're still here. Because of all this," Sasori's lips curled in disgust as he gestured in their direction with both hands like he was using his fingers to whisk something. "Happened and is still happening."

"Smartass," Minato muttered under his breath.

"He has a point," Sakura laughed, peeling herself off of him. Her asking if he was sure she could not just go with him had led them here. She squeezed his cheeks. "Hurry back."

"I will," he promised with his curled fist over his heart.

"The lieutenant it is then," Sasori took one step forward like a poorly coordinated zombie toward the pair, knife held in a limp grip.

Sakura grabbed Minato by the arm before he could walk over and smack Sasori upside the head—even if it was well-earned. The sooner Minato left to do whatever it was he needed to do, the sooner he would be back. She pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, keeping his attention strictly on her. She never did learn to share being the youngest. "I'll be waiting," she told him with eyes solely focused on him. The world melted away. "We're making brownies tonight."

"And watching the sixth movie." He remembered. "I'll be fast," he promised, holding her to him. "I can't wait."

"Me either," She sighed in contentment, with a smile on her face. "But for you, I'll try."

Face dons days-long mask,

Unbidden joy drapes my lips—

Me, the last to know.

xXx

Sakura eyed her filtered likeness through the front-facing camera lens. Her legs folded underneath her and her back rested against her headboard. The canned lights were on as were the table lamps. She closed the camera app—not before adjusting the neckline of her red dress—to open the phone. She tapped the last call, mindful to keep the angle the same one she had tested prior. The line trilled in her ears, coming out of her white cordless headphones.

"Ino," she smiled wide and bright. "Oh wow," she breathed in appreciation, taking in all there was to take in. The purple strapless jumpsuit highlighted the plentiful curves. Her platinum hair was slicked back in her signature high ponytail. Not a hair was out of place. "You look hot."

Baby-blue eyes rolled to the ceiling, a scoff was her response. "Tell me something I don't know." The phone was set presumably on a counter. Ino picked a purple brush and resumed applying blush on her cheeks. "I'm going out with Karin," she supplied, distractedly. "You sure I can't convince you to come with us?"

Sakura shook her head. "No, I have plans already," she tried—and failed—to keep the giddiness from her voice.

"You having plans?" Ino cocked a brow, going even as far as lowering her makeup brush. Her jaw hung open, stunned.

"Come off it, Pig," Sakura tsked without emotion. "I know you arranged those flowers." Her eyes softened. "Thank you. They're beautiful," she watched Ino widen her eyes to swipe even layers of mascara. "Did," she began in a small shy voice, her cheeks slowly heating to match her dress. "Did he say anything about me?"

"No," Ino said. "Why would you come up?"

Honestly.

Sakura should have known it would not be that easy. Not with Ino. Especially not with something like this. "Forget I said anything," Sakura pushed her lips to the side, sighing loudly.

"Did something happen, Forehead?" Ino asked, voice almost gentle. Patient. Her full attention was on the small pinkette on her screen.

"Yeah," Sakura's smile widened. "Something pretty great. My face hurts."

"That's disgusting," Ino scrunched her nose. "You sound so happy about it too, didn't expect that from you."

"Not from that!" Sakura was quick to correct with exasperation. "From smiling, Pig! Get your head out of the gutter!"

Ino laughed unapologetically. "So, where did he take you?"

"I," Sakura mulled it over quickly in her head just how frank to be. "Nowhere. I made dinner for him."

"Now, I know you're bullshitting me," Ino's beautiful features were marred by a scowl. "Have you learned nothing?"

"I'm serious!" Sakura insisted to no one's real benefit. Ino was already fully committed to judging her choices and presuming the worst about Minato. Comments on just how easy Sakura was were being held back, the pinkette knew Ino well enough for that. "He's not dead if you're wondering," she attempted to distract with humor.

"Oh good," Ino hooked large silver hoops through her ear. "My outfit is much too expensive to help you move a body. But I guess Karin and Hikari would be there. I excel at delegating."

"You're terrible," Sakura shook her head. Karin's silence would be expensive to buy. It would not be worth it. "Your smokey eye is perfect." There was more than a trace of jealousy in her tone.

"It only took me three tries. I had way too much caffeine today," Ino sighed, it had been a long day even if it only totaled half a shift. "I'm happy for you, Forehead." She meant it. The warmth that budded in Sakura's chest was a testament to that fact. "I can't remember the last time you were this obnoxious," she added with fondness.

"Thanks, me too. I really like him." Sakura biting down on her lip did not impede her smile in the slightest. "Like, really, really like him."

"Sakura," Ino was frowning, momentarily pausing from adorning what was plenty enticing enough. "Babe, try not to get too excited, okay? It's still early. You're in the learning phase," Ino reminded her with careful tact—almost clinical in its delivery. "Eyes wide open," she advised with equal parts tenderness and overbearing.

She means well.

Sakura had to tell herself. To her, it was just flowers after ten months of nothing. To Ino it was not enough because she did not know enough. Ino was only trying to look out for her. As she always did. "Did you threaten him with bodily harm?" Sakura asked, knowing full well the answer.

"Just who do you think you're talking to?" The blonde filled in her brows with a smug smirk on her face that was telling. "We had a nice heart-to-heart. A seeing eye-to-eye kind of thing. We set some expectations. All very civil."

"I know exactly who I'm talking to," Sakura stated in a deadpan. "Don't make me ask again nicely, Babe." Sakura was not capable of such a thing.

"Florist-client privilege binds me, Forehead," Ino uttered ridiculousness with grave conviction. "My hands are tied."

"Not a thing," Sakura went straight to the dismissal of such convoluted notions. "It's not like you're his doctor." Her face lost color at the two fragments of thought crossing. "Oh my God, you're not his doctor are you?" She asked in a small voice, stomach twisting with dread as more and more scenarios—probabilities—-unfurled in her head. Rapidly.

"You need to take a chill pill. Say the word and I'll prescribe you some Prozac," Ino offered earnestly. She turned in the mirror, critical of all her angles. "Not everything is a long elaborate scam."

Maybe, but it still feels a little too good to be true.

Sakura just stopped in time from pinching herself. Ino would tease her incessantly and the woman really did not need more ammunition. This was much too indirect for Ino. There was no way Ino and Minato knew each other from before. She was just being paranoid.

"So he was just there when you arrived?"

"He was. He and my dad were talking. Dad was being unfriendly. He was probably just coddling his bruised ego from the reality check Mom gave him that he's not remotely close to young anymore. You should have seen his face when he realized we knew each other and he wonders why I never bring anyone around," Ino huffed out.

"You'd have to not get bored for someone to stick around," Sakura pointed out in what Ino found not to be too helpful if her glare was anything to go off of. "You'll be warm enough?"

"Yes, Granny," Ino rolled her eyes. "I have my coat. The venue is inside. Although it seems to have an industrial basement vibe. I'll also bring my leather moto jacket. I'll be fine."

That doesn't sound warm at all.

"Call or text me when you get into the car and when you get to the venue. When you leave too," Sakura instructed with the ease of repetitive practice. "Don't be on the phone while you're waiting alone. It reduces your situational awareness," she spoke like the hypocrite that she was. And in her heart, she knew Ino would not listen to half the things she said. But maybe the half she did retain would be the half that ended up keeping her safe.

"Yes, yes," Ino nodded her head, so placating that it was patronizing. "Enough about me, you're wearing makeup and in a dress," she noted dryly. "What are you doing tonight?"

"We're watching Harry Potter after we make dessert," she twirled a pink lock of hair around her index finger.

"Is that a euphemism? Please tell me it's a euphemism because, Forehead, that sounds boring as hell. Practically geriatric."

"I'm looking forward to it, I'll have you know," Sakura stood behind her words with an obnoxious tone.

Don't yuck my yum, Pig.

"Well, it sounds like you found the perfect counterpart. He is as much of a ghost as you online," Ino let out a sigh, she was much closer. She had picked up the phone. A gray opaque film covered the screen. The video feed was paused. "It's Karin. I need to take her call. I ignored her last five." Ino was back in full view, the phone on the counter.

Sakura whistled, eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. "Five?" She did not know whether to be concerned or impressed. Concerned probably.

Ino shook her head. "I'm definitely going to be a little bit tipsy before the car picks me up. There's no way I'm getting through tonight sober. Who the hell thinks watching people writhing in paint on a blank canvas sheet is an idea of a good time?"

You're the one who said yes.

"You're being a supportive friend," Sakura reminded her not unkindly. "Have fun. Tell me how it goes."

Or don't, that works too.

"You too," Ino blew her a kiss a second before the call disconnected, leaving Sakura's smiling reflection against a black screen.

xXx

"The set has been delivered," the voice in his ear said in a monotone.

Always with the melodrama.

Minato pinched the bridge of his nose. The concerted effort to keep his patience contained to just his physical person pinched his features together. He waited. The call was a courtesy.

"One piece in particular is different. Be sure to give it additional notice."

He's not there.

Minato blinked. His rigid posture did not change in the slightest. Hooded cobalt eyes scanned the street on the other side of the chain link fence. His folded elbow rested on the center console. The car smelled faintly of coffee. The stained rings around the circumference of the cup holders were the likely culprits.

"Understood," Minato's smooth, detached voice filled the cold cabin of the car. The line went dead. A white-knuckle grip on the burner phone had the metal straining—leaving impressions on his angry, red palm. Narrowed cobalt eyes saw past the mulling, blurry faces of the populace. Indiscriminately.

The news would be public soon. There was a potential that Sakura would stumble across it before he arrived back at the apartment. He tapped the screen. The clock spoke that he was out of time. They were creatures of habit. It was like clockwork. Reliable. The Professor had told Minato himself. Even if he waited just another minute, the narrow window of opportunity would be securely closed.

Shit.

It would have to wait—calling her would have to wait and this was too big to put in a text. He sent out a silent prayer that she stayed away from the news before he gathered himself, mind, body, and soul in preparation for what was to come. With a soft sigh, he rolled his shoulders, pushing open the car door. His loafers came into contact with the slightly damp asphalt. The dirt on the windshield had been made more noticeable with the quick smatter of rain that dried quicker than it had wet the ground. The car door slammed. The cat keyring in his pocket jostled by the residual vibrations. Minato raised his shoulders, preventing the wind from slapping against the vulnerable skin around his nape.

"Your phone?" He asked the man who had emerged from the black SVU reversed parked into the spot, who was now standing to his right.

"Off," Rihito gathered his hair into a ponytail. "I left my personal at home like you asked."

Good. No distractions.

Minato nodded his head. The motion was curt but it conveyed his approval. "Remember what I said."

At all times.

"Keep quiet and look pretty," Rihito grinned at the sigh that left Minato. "I added the last part."

Now is not the time to get cheeky with me, Nara.

"Don't smile. Don't talk. Don't look at anyone."

But see everything. Hear everything. Remember everything.

Rihito rolled his eyes. "I just told you that I remembered." He held up his hands at the glare he earned. "You made me take out my nose ring. I like my nose ring. That's why I wear it."

You'll thank me later.

Minato blinked slowly with his jaw set in a tense line that bled into his shoulders and back.

"Starting now," the Nara resigned, dryly. He zipped up and locked his mouth, throwing away the key. His expression dissolved into impassiveness. Even the light behind his eyes was not as prominent.

Minato's hands only pulled out of the safety of his pockets to grasp around the cold, rough handle of a metal door. He pulled, both of them slipping inside just in time for the second door to buzz open. The telltale sounds and aroma—smoke—filled his nose. He expanded his chest to full capacity, pulling as much of it in as he could. It left him with a borrowed calm—a sense of control when he very much had so little.

He ignored the exclaims of desperation around him. The bright lights and colors both overhead and eye level did not capture his attention. Nor did the flashing that was accompanied by pinging sounds. The early model slot machines were not why he had come all this way.

The carpet was a rich maroon. They followed the stripe of blue that was right in the middle of it. A path that was laid out. Burly men in slate gray suits and black v-neck t-shirts with their hands clasped in front of them eyed him top to bottom. Minato did not budge. Rihito was half a step behind him. The man on the right was bald. His head was shiny—reflecting the canned lights like little stars on his scalp. He jerked his thumb to the right to a sign.

Employees Only.

"Can't you read, Pretty Boys?" He sneered, hand reaching for his holster that was hidden away in the loose suit jacket when the two remained stationary.

Cobalt eyes rolled over to his face lazily, flickering away in clear dismissal; the man bolstered at the lack of respect. Before he could move forward into Minato's space, his counterpart brought two fingers to his ear; brown brow furrowed and frowning, his other hand held out over the bald man's chest—halting him dead in his tracks.

"Yes, boss," he murmured before he lowered his arm. He dipped his head, and both his hands returned to being clasped in front of him. "Please come in, Mr. Namikaze." He reached for the doorknob. It turned. His silver watch—a counterfeit—-glittered. The door parted from its frame.

Minato's hand slipped into his pocket. He pulled out his phone, handing it to the guard on the left. Rihito did the same, mimicking his movements. His shadow. The man dipped his head in a quiet gesture. The blond did not bother to register the expression the other muscle wore. He walked through the entry. The back wall was covered in screens. Nearly every inch of the casino was being recorded in black and white; a silent picture of illegal activity.

The large round oak table, lined with green velvet, playing cards, stacks of ryo, expensive (real) watches and jewelry, white powder, and square glasses with various colored liquid was filled with bodies. The old faces turned to regard him. Only thirteen pairs of eyes in that room mattered. The other twenty-five eyeballs around the side walls were as negligible as flies—until they were not.

"It is quite the surprise that you still remember these roads," a voice eaten away by cigars addressed him—the head of the table. His gray hair was slicked back. A thick gold chain around his neck, clearly visible over his white turtleneck.

"It's been a while," Minato admitted, bowing his head for no less than five seconds. "But I haven't forgotten."

The man let out a rough scoff; clearing the phlegm from his throat and swallowing it back. His eyes briefly flickered to Rihito before returning to bore into Minato's head.

"Have you come for the game? He asked indifferently. He was right on time after all.

Senju.

"Yes." Minato rolled up the sleeves of his white collared silk dress shirt to the crooks of his elbows. He pulled a chair with him as he walked, holding it to him at his hip, not letting the metal legs clatter and creak against the tilted ground.

"You're missing something," the Senju jeered, grinning to reveal no less than three solid gold teeth in perfect view. "Maybe you should quit before you lose the shirt off your back too."

Minato's jacket—the supposedly missing argument—was in the car. He did not bring a spare one—like he had with his shirt. He did not want to return back to Sakura's smelling like the inside of a casino. It would raise an opportunity for questions he would rather not get into. Not to mention she did not seem as receptive to the smell as he was. There was no nostalgia associated with it in her case.

"We thought you dead," a voice called out with neutrality. He would not have been affected either way. The representative from the Agawa Family—much too small to be considered a clan with only a hundred known names—was the one to make the comment.

"He's not that easy to get rid of, not unlike the common roach," a gruff voice spoke on his behalf; aged and not nearly as boisterous as it once had been in his prime. His cataract-impaired eyes were hidden away by dark round sunglasses.

Aburame.

"You're everywhere lately and yet nowhere," the voice to his right rasped, exhaling smoke. He coughed into his fist before taking another long drag, his creased-filled mouth set itself in a deeply annoyed frown. "Sugawara almost pissed himself in my office. Incoherent son of a bitch," he grumbled darkly, raking a hand over his ashen face.

Sarutobi.

There was some laughter at the D.A.'s expense—some more hearty and boisterous than others.

"Does Shikaku need to keep a tracker in your collar? You're far out of the boundary of the invisible fence."A threat uttered casually by the eldest living member of the once-royal line of the Yamada Clan. Ancient. He was probably pushing a hundred and three if the rumors were to be believed. "You even brought his late wife's nephew."

Fly on the wall. You're here to be a fly on the wall.

Minato did not look back to see if Rihito reacted. So far he had followed instructions to the T—when he was not actively trying to be a little shit. Minato had no reason to believe Rihito would not continue to do so.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?"

"Looks like he's all bark and no bite."

"What bark?"

"What about you boy? Can you speak?" The insult was hurled in the direction of the silent Nara. The seconds ticked loudly.

"It's true what they say, a neutered dog is not even a bitch."

A round of laughter, jeers, and claps. The old heads of the Akatsuki. Relics of time long past. Kings of nothing but still proud. How they would remain until their respective last days.

Hyuuga. Akimichi. Fuma. Hoki. Inuzuka. Kurama. Shimura.

Minato mentally listed the rest of the present as his eyes wandered the table, languidly. It was only right. They were studying him—sizing him up. He was forty years junior at least to the next closest in age. Time was moving much too slowly.

Minato continued to not engage. They may be talking about him but they were not talking to him. It was a simple baiting tactic. Simple but effective. Hot-headed, young men fell prey to it often enough that the wheel did not need to be reinvented. An impromptu hazing ceremony was required each and every time because he did not go to war with anyone else at the table. He had not earned their respect by trading bullets. That was what made him different—that besides the obvious.

"Enough," Hyuuga spoke, his upper lip curled with his utter disdain for the nature of exchange. "I do not intend to spend what is left of my time on this earth chatting like a bunch of housewives with you lot. Either deal him in or deal with him!"

Please.

Minato kept his support strictly internal. The more emotion he showed the longer this would go on. He may not be actively making money but that did not mean he could burn hours with these retired men.

"Don't get your panties in a bunch, Harionago, we're just having our fun."

The Hyuuga let out a puff of air, offended at the not-quite-flattering comparison to the old folk legend of the terrifying Barbed Woman. He was quick to close his mouth and narrow his pearl-colored eyes, jaw set in seething anger.

"What's the call?" Sarutobi pulled nearly everyone's attention with his pointed question. "The minimum is a honey bun. You got that on you, Yellow Flash?" The tone was incredulous. A different head even went as far as looking around for a bag of a hundred thousand ryo that was just not there.

Yuki.

There was clamoring and murmur, even some chortles. The Senju head had not moved or spoken. He was regarding Minato with beady, shiny dark eyes.

"I did not come with money," Minato said, much too nonchalantly especially considering he was the only one with not at least one bodyguard—backup—armed to the teeth and more than a little trigger-happy. They were completely unarmed in fact. Unlike the other men at the table, he was holding up his seat instead of it holding him. "A favor owed," he laid bare his offered substitution for the monitory buy-in amount.

A silence surrounded—enveloped—the round table. Faces went slack and even the smoke of the cigars that were held between ring-adorned fingers seemed to become scarce. No one moved. Not even Minato. He kept his gaze fixed on the only face that mattered.

It's next to worthless once I lose my standing.

On the off-chance, he lost. But they did not need to know that. Just like they did not need to know that he had learned to gamble—during his life revaluation phase—from the Legendary Sucker herself. Them not calling his bluff was an integral part of the plan. His risky-no-good-would-earn-him-an-earful-from-both-Jiraiya-and-Tsunade plan. But they were not here to lecture him so he pushed it from his mind. For now.

Show no weakness.

Thin lips pulled together. Bloodless. Minato's poker face did not betray the bead of sweat that was working its way down his spine. A gamble before even the game began. The severity of the man's face lessened. He threw his head back and laughed. It sounded like breathless gasps for air. He clapped his hands twice when he settled back down. Shoulders dipped. Other nervous laughter joined him, blanketing it completely.

"I like you, boy," he grinned, taking a long drag of his cigar. "I've always liked you." He blew out a ring of gray smoke. "Sit, sit," he gestured with his hand.

Minato lowered the chair next to the judge. The Sarutobi sighed. With a grumble and choice words under his breath, he shimmed his chair causing a chain reaction. Three more men slid over. Minato rested his forearms at the edge of the table, hands folded and eyes sharp.

"What do you want?" The Senju gestured behind Minato.

The blond from the corner of his eye registered a round black tray. A woman in a black kimono and fishnets stood ready behind him to serve.

"Sake," and information but one came before the other. Minato's eyes landed back on the table's head. He waited for a beat, only to relax marginally when the gray head of hair nodded curtly.

"Smoke?" Sarutobi asked, passing along an uncut cigar with a hand covered in liver spots.

"No thank you," Minato declined politely. He did not have to worry about Rihito. The man had taken a place against the wall with his hands clasped and dark eyes sharp with alertness.

You wanted to learn. So learn.

"Don't light up that cheap shit behind your ear in here. Cancer will not get to me before retirement does," Sarutobi wheezed, coughing into his fist in unfortunate timing.

They'll need a competent replacement before they let you.

Minato said nothing as he watched himself being dealt into the game, officially.

xXx

She moved two fingers on her trackpad, eyes glazed over as she scrolled mindlessly. There were only so many puppy and cat videos she could handle before her short attention span took over. She reached lazily for her phone. She checked her messages. She sighed through her nose at no new texts from Minato. It did not really come as a surprise. All his texts to her were always very dry as they served one purpose and one purpose alone and that was to be informative.

She knew that. So why she checked her phone every five seconds was beyond her. Maybe she liked to torture herself. In a strange way, it took her to the beginning—to the day at the subway. She had been anxious for him to text her back then too. But now the stakes were higher. Every time he left the house, he had multiple targets on his back and they all originated from the same place: the Uchiha. Sasuke and his clan. Sasuke, the man who also did not call, text, or try to contact her in any way. She wondered if it was out of pride or if he was giving her space to think about it. It did not matter as she was not going to call him to ask. She did not need to—or cared to—know.

Some things are better left alone.

Her phone buzzed. Her lips pulled into a smile only for it to fall when she saw who the notification was from—or rather, who the notification was not from.

She must have made it to the basement warehouse thing.

It sounded like the start of a terrible slasher film but no one asked for Sakura's opinion so she kept it to herself. She opened the messenger app, tapping Ino's name.

Forehead! Have you seen this?!

The URL was the Konoha Leaf, their most reputable newspaper. She clicked on the link. Her eyes quickly read the headline.

The Remaining Suspects of the Subway Shooting Revealed. Three For Three: Uchiha.

Sakura sat upright, back rigid. Her heart was beating in her chest painfully as she scrolled through the blocks of text, impatient for what she was searching for. Her heart nearly stopped at the first two faces with blue backgrounds.

Not them.

She scrolled further. Her heart sank. The third and last photo was also not him. It was not the man she remembered. She rose from her bed. She wondered if Sasori was done making his call. She wanted to ask him if he knew any of the faces. Surely he had to know more than her. She pressed her ear against the door. Nothing. Not a sound. Sakura opened it a sliver. Just before she could poke her head out, she registered his voice.

"Yeah man, everyone's seen it. I don't know what to tell you. It's all shit. None of those Uchiha did it."

She could see his leg bobbing up and down—the one thrown over the armrest of her accent chair.

"Nothing, I'm watching his girl again," Sasori sighed long sufferingly.

Sakura got into a crouch, making herself smaller so she would be harder to see if he bothered to look over the back of the chair. She listened. How could she not? He was talking about her.

Sasori snorted at something the person—a man—on the other end of the phone said. "Nah, they're no longer making eyes anymore. I mean they are. They aren't just making eyes anymore. Took nearly a year. But hey, it's happening."

Her cheeks reddened to have her business aired like that—to some perfect stranger.

"Yeah, she's okay, crazy though, and not the hot kind," Sasori paused, presumably to either listen or think. "Even with the unique cotton candy hair and doll eyes, she's not worth half mil."

Half mil? What does he mean by half mil…half a million?

"He bribed him. The Nara to take his place," Sasori went quiet for a beat. Maybe two. Coincidentally, Sakura's had picked up. "I gave him the money myself from his stash at the compound." There was a lull—a pause before Sasori let out a rough snort. "Where do you think he's right now? Off to buy someone else off." He answered his own question without hardly a pause.

Minato? Minato…bribed Haruto Nara. Personally?

Her heart sank. He had told her it was how clans operated. He had told her and she neglected to read between the lines. He never did answer her question directly when she asked him how he operated. She did not want to believe it.

It was him?

"He has a name for the Uchiha. A pig gave it to him. A while back. Some low-level thug, not worth the cost of putting his name to ink. Masa…masa-something…hold on, I had a system," he pinched the bridge of his nose. Sasori snapped his fingers, slapping his knee. "Seaweed..nori! Masanori, yeah that's that bitch's name," Sasori snapped his fingers once more but this time, he sat up, causing Sakura to almost jump—she narrowly avoided hitting the top of her head on the door knob.

What? Minato said it was the head's nephew. Right in the beginning. But…a pig? A cop told Minato? What cop?

Her head started to spin. Did Minato lie to her? Why?

"Nah it's fine," Sasori glanced over the top of the chair. "She's sleeping or some shit. She just lazes around all day. I messed up, I should have gone to med school," he let out a breathy cackle.

Pink brows furrowed. She held her breath. It was not for long. Sasori's dry-to-the-bone voice filled the room and then some, like falling grains of sand.

"Lieu's contact within the clan was pissed. I would chop off my right pinky to be in the room when he got chewed out. He's probably in hot water with his daddy." Sasori laughed, cruel and raspy. "They all look the same. It's impossible to tell them apart, at least Uchiha—Shisui— is fun. He can pull a flock. But even that's on hold while this is being sorted." He blew a raspberry while playing with the hair at the crown of his head. The silver rings shone.

Shisui…why is that name familiar?

She racked her brain trying to place everything on top of each other in the correct order. It was too much information, or rather, the information brought too many emotions that made it hard to think straight.

Minato has a contact…in the Uchiha Clan? Shisui…Shisui…where have I heard that name before? Shisui. Shisui! Sasuke's annoying cousin! The one he said I would get along with because we're both friendly. Who is he talking about when he said 'daddy'? Literal father or clan-head father? Or both?

"This whole bloody thing wouldn't have happened if he wasn't in Tani," Sasori luffed his hair with a careless hand. "Why else was he here? To see her," Sasori snorted with palpable irritation.

Me? He wanted to see me? But how did he know I was here? Where I live.

Dread—the same one she had woken with moved through her.

"He had this whole thing laid out; an eighteen-month plan or some shit. Meticulous down to the very last detail of how he would do it. Only to fumble it ten months in. Approached her too quickly. But I guess it worked out for him. He got what he wanted. He's always had a thing for being told what to do—"

Sakura closed the door softly. She had heard enough. There was nothing else she could retain. She pulled her knees to her chest, head spinning so much she nearly threw up her breakfast. Her ears rang with the question Sasori had once asked her—the very question that kept coming back to the forefront of her mind. Over and over and over again. Verbatim.

Ever wonder, Doc, why he never approached you first? In all these months.

She had an answer. He was not a pawn. And maybe, nor was he a white knight.

xXx

Addicts always lie.

She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She really wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt. She was desperate to give him the benefit of the doubt. Sasori could be lying. He was not the most stable of individuals. That was true but that did not stop her from asking the same question over and over again.

Why?

Why would he lie? Especially when he had no reason to. He thought she was unaware of his private conversation. The added degrees of separation were intentional. Sakura had zero desire to be on the receiving end of crude—distasteful—jokes and jeers now that Sasori knew things were different between her and Minato. The development was obvious. They had not tried to hide it—hardly at all.

He picked up flowers at Yamanaka's Flower Shop…the one in Yuma.

A coincidence? Intentional? Just an innocent byproduct of Ino wearing her easily identifiable name switched across her white coat breast pocket when they grabbed coffee every morning all those days that added up to fill the majority of the months on a calendar?

She did not have an answer to the why and maybe that was an answer in and of itself. Maybe that was enough.

For not all is known,

More unaware than aware—

Lost in perspectives.

She was moving in circles. Round and round. Mentally. She was getting nowhere fast. Her nerves were fraying. Her fingers clenched tightly around the warm yarn of her dress. She focused on what she heard. It was all she had.

Namikaze never misses unintentionally.

Daddy.

Minato has a contact in the Uchiha Clan.

Minato bribed Haruto Nara.

Minato is out half a million ryo.

Daddy.

What if Minato was not the only one who was an experiment marksman? Was it really a stretch to assume that the Uchiha had people who could handle guns as well as Minato? It was hubris was it not, to assume that Minato was the only one who could not hit a target as well as they could hit it?

Because if you ever find yourself 1-v-1 with Minato Namikaze and you're the one with the gun, you're toast.

Sure Sasori had said the statement with his whole chest but what about 3-v-1? Would Minato still realistically come out on top then?

Without help?

Minato was hit in the shoulder—not lethal by any means if treated promptly enough. He had supposedly taken down two offenders with his bare hands and that too while shot…potentially. She did not know if it was before, during, or even after he was shot. His hand was swollen. Even if his pain tolerance was high….There were three names—three faces—officially tied to the crime.

He knew where I lived. He knew. He was in Tani to see me. He knew I would be there. What if he…what if he did all this…?

Daddy… what if, what if, Minato's contact in the clan was Sasuke?

What if the two of them were working together? To what end, she did not know. What either hoped to gain from the other….

Is he loyal?

To the clan that took him in when no one else did? To his Uncle? To the memory of Shika? To money? To this life? To…her?

Was she crazy to expect loyalty? Who even was she to him? Just number seven on the list?

In shadows, whispers reign,

Promises like thin glass—

Trust shattered.

A smile cloaked in deceit,

The warmth of a hand that betrayed;

My wounded heart learned too late.

Truth blooms in silence,

Each scar a lesson etched deep,

Guard your heart's flame.

Still. Quiet. The swarm of thoughts was not even a faint buzz.

She sat on the edge of her bed with not a hair misplaced. She was filled with a great calm. It was all coming together. She was seeing everything clearly now for the first time in a better part of three weeks. She stared out of her balcony window. She saw her first sunset in more than three weeks. Just how much power had she given this man? This stranger? Over her life. Over her mind. And over her body.

Her past. Her present. She was even thinking of a future. With him. With this man. With a man who could have orchestrated this all. A man who could be making her out to be what she thought she was not. A fool. She was a damn fool.

Too much. She had given him too much. Her brother would be horrified. Sakura eyed the duffle bag at the foot of the bed. Next to her on the mattress were large gray garment bags. Six of them. She was probably sitting next to thirty thousand ryo worth of suits. Easily. At least. She blinked as the light in the room reduced more and more. Little by little.

Talk to him.

Ino's words—forceful (nagging) advice—called out clearly like a bell in her head. It rang repeatedly.

It was too bright and polluted in Tani to see the stars. She would have to rely on her imagination—her memory. They were there. Up there. They were always up there. Just like her brother was. Only she could not lift her head to look for him. Her shame—her humiliation—was too pronounced for her to hold up her head. Not anymore.

Here I lay bare and broken,

My trust woven with careful, delicate threads—

Burned to ash by the humiliation that set me to flame.

"Doc?" There was a knock at the door. Tentative. Hollow. Unsure. Everything she had not come to associate with him. Perhaps that too was a glaring oversight. What did she know after all? "You good?"

"Fine," she said in a clear voice, not looking away from the glass. She barely blinked. Her hands stayed folded on her lap. Her phone buzzed. She raised it to her eyes without turning her head.

Be there in ten minutes.

Okay. 3

She wrote back. She tossed the phone on the bed, not caring it landed on his side. Sakura got onto her feet. She tore the case from the pillow. She shoved it into the first zipper she could find in the duffle bag. So clear that everything was a lie. The shroud of deceit was pulled from her eyes. She could finally see once more. Sakura walked to the door, ignoring Sasori's perplexion tossed in her direction. She pulled out the glass container from the freezer indiscriminately, removing the navy rubber lid. She moved the first of the last portioned lasagna pieces with her fingers to throw on a plate. She pressed a button on the microwave. She listened to it cackle, watching it closely for the sauce to bubble on the surface—splattering on the sides of the box.

Eyes wide open.

xXx

Minato knew something was off the moment Sasori ducked past the front door—at Sakura's insistence. The man's face was blank but there was something in his brown eyes that contained enough of a warning. Tread carefully. Sakura had barely even spared Minato a glance. A far cry from her sendoff. Neither of their smiles were anywhere to be found; long gone.

Talk to me, Sakura.

Because in addition to not looking at him, she was not speaking to him. The silence was stifling, disorienting and panic inducing. His bare feet did not touch any stable surface. He could not get traction—find a way in or out. It was almost as if he were drowning on dry land.

"Everything okay, Sakura?" He asked her again in an attempt to open up the floodgates she was so clearly holding back. His fork sat next to the lasagna that was nuked to oblivion. It was as hard as a puck. There were black burnt bits where the sauce stuck to the plate. It would be a nightmare to clean. It was a good thing his shoulder was more or less back to full strength. "Is your mom okay?" He asked with concern, not keeping his frown off his face—open and hoping to inspire the same.

"She's fine," curt words uttered in a flat tone gave the impression it was a chore to speak with him. He tried not to read too much into it.

What's wrong then?

"That's good," he watched the way her fork scraped the air over her lasagna. She had not taken a bite. Her eyes were glazed over and distant. Cold. Something clicked. A major event that they had not had the chance to discuss. "Is it about the news—"

"Minato," she cut him off in a matter-of-fact tone. He closed his mouth and focused on his already perked ears. "I want to ask you something."

"Okay," he sat up straighter, gaze darting from the water cup on the table to her face. The thought of parching his dry, dry, throat was fleeting even if the need was growing more pressing. "Anything," he encouraged, even eagerly.

"Why did the shootout happen?"

She snatched the air right out of his lungs with her query.

"I don't know," he could only answer with lameness and uncertainty.

"It's been nearly a month," she pointed out what he already knew. He could not read her face; downturned despite her voice being strong and clear.

"I don't have an answer for you." Or anyone else that was wondering the same thing. The list was long. Masanori Uchiha was not among the three men. The Uchiha Clan was protecting him. Fugaku was protecting him. Either because Masanori had something of value or Deidara had outdated information.

I don't know which it is.

"That's okay," she shrugged, tone shifting close to conversational but his gut reacted strongly—more strongly—than any point prior. "Maybe you'll have an answer for my next question."

He felt his palms grow sweaty. It was a good thing he was sitting down because all precursors to a dizzy spell were knocking on the door; the door he was stubbornly ignoring.

"Did you know where I lived before I brought you here?" She was finally looking at him and it had him wishing she was not. Because her gaze was crucifying.

"Sakura," he inhaled slowly. "I—"

"What were you doing in Tani, Minato?" She snapped like a rubber band pulled past its breaking point. The point of no return.

"Sakura," his stomach sank. She knew. It was painfully evident. He switched to damage control—to salvage what he could and prevent further incineration. "I can explain—"

"Explain," she repeated with a cruel laugh, cutting him down at the tongue before he could even start. "Explain?" She was gripping her fork like it was the hilt of a knife, in a white knuckle grip. "Explain how you stalked me. Explain how you manipulated me. Explain how you isolated me from my job. Explain how you lied to me. Explain how you manufactured the perfect circumstances so I would see you in a positive light. Explain how you forced the situation to humanize you. Explain what, Minato?" She slammed her palms on the table, shaking it completely. A violent tremor. "What can you explain?!" She all but shouted.

"Sakura," he said her name gently, placatingly. "We just need to take a minute and clear our heads—"

"We?" She spat at him, hissing. Her voice and features were feral. "Our?!" She shook her head. "There is no we. There is no our. I don't even know you." It was the truth—or some partial version of it—but it carved him nonetheless. Breathless. The realization left him breathless. "I packed your things. I want you out." She was on her feet. Her arms crossed over her chest. Closed.

"Sakura," he repeated like a broken record, clinging desperately to the fleeting notion that something could be salvaged from this; something that he could hold onto. Like a mindless mantra, all he had was her name. His knees were too weak to support him to do anything other than just stand there. Rooted in place, ensnared in her hostility.

"Did you or did you not," she held up her hand in a gesture that carried the silent sentiment of 'enough.' He was not doing enough. Not nearly enough. "Did you or did you not pay personally for Haruto Nara to be your fall guy?"

He could only blink when confronted with the truth. He was amassing weight right on his chest—like a bullet piercing him, center mass. Her aim was accurate and without mercy.

"Do you," her voice came close to breaking, it caught but she moved past the stumble. Steely. "Or do you not have an inside connection to the Uchiha Clan?"

I need more time. Give me more time.

His Adam's apple bobbed as a result of a painful swallow.

"Did you or did you learn the name of the Uchiha I shot through a cop?" She asked with the belief that this time would be different—that her query would not be met with silence. "Did you or did you not lie to me about his identity?" She asked, calmly. Detached. Collected. In control.

"Yes," he answered with all that was left—the truth. "Please, Sakura," he pleaded for his sake and her own. Rash. She could not afford to be rash, as he could not afford to be half-honest. "Just give me a chance—"

"No." No more chances. No more words. No more anything. "You have five minutes to get your things," she shook her head. Her eyes were so cold. She was done. With him. Maybe even completely—for good—if he allowed himself to register what he was seeing in full.

"Sak—"

"Stop! Just stop." Her nostrils flared in testament to patience that was no more. The thoughts in her head were singular. He knew that somehow all without being able to read them. "I wish I never met you."

You don't mean that. She doesn't mean that.

His eyes closed heavily, immediately once his brain made sense of what his ears heard. He was not quick to open them back up. Her anger—her disgusted visage—was burned in every memory cell of his mind. A clear enough picture. She hated his guts. She hated him.

Right now. For now.

A small sliver of hope—the very thing he needed to be able to pick up the pieces of himself that had fallen to the ground to move on to the next day. A new day that would hopefully be better than the now. Temporary. Not forever.

Love's opposite is not hate. Love's opposite is indifference.

He told himself with lasting reminders that the eight crescent moons were carved into his palms by his blunt nails. It was okay if she hated him. They could still come back from that.

It's okay.

"Now!" She screamed—guttural and raw—when he did not move.

"Okay," he held up his hands, blinking his eyes open. Any louder and Ms. Honda would be knocking on her door, demanding an audience with the tenant of apartment 2C or Sakura would follow through on her threat which could very well be fatal for her. "Okay," he stood up slowly, his arms still bent and raised on either side of his head. "Sakura," he implored her to reconsider; for one moment. Just one.

Please listen.

She glared at his collarbone. Her curled top lip was trembling. The vulnerability that she kept hidden away flashed across her jade-colored eyes for a second. Just long enough for him to register, recognize, and regret. In a moment of weakness, she spoke to him.

"Was any of it real?" She asked him, devastated. "Were you ever completely honest with me?" She paused to gather up what was left of her dignity. She would not allow herself to cry in front of him. Not when he was on the other side of the line—out looking in. The honesty to the fragile state of mind—the once open channel of communication closed—was replaced by a mask of stone; without a single impervious crack. She did not wait for him to respond. She took his knee-jerk reaction to clamp up as condemning hesitation. Maybe in a twisted way, she should have been flattered that someone would do something so elaborate for her. It was ridiculous. It was so far-fetched that she did not even know where to begin. So she started to laugh, her head thrown back and her fingers stretched to the limit at her side.

"Or was it all just you handling me?" She accused into the ceiling without regard or concern for anything beyond her indignation. She always did go for the jugular when fighting. She scorched the earth uncaring for the extent of the burn scars she left in the wake of her destruction.

"No," he shook his head, excessive and lost. "I never handled you. I wasn't just telling you what you wanted to hear," he grasped at the words that would undo it all—the misunderstandings. But he kept coming up far too short. They did not reach her. She had already fortified herself against him; against his influence. But like a madman, he tried. Desperate. It was all slipping through his fingers. "I would never knowingly or willingly put you in harm's way."

You know that Sakura. You know me.

Despite what she had said. She knew him. She just needed to realize that. "Sakura," he frowned with ample concern, finding the ability to speak once again. Temporary and perhaps too late.

"Trauma bonding over our dead brothers should have been enough, right?" She asked, her voice cruel and with zero hope for empathy. She incarcerated hope to finite ash, scattering it in the torrid winds of her blazing storm.

"Of course, it was real, Sakura," he stopped himself from taking a step forward, finally answering the question she had already settled on an answer to. Sticky blood moved down his hand. "All of it."

I wanted to be honest. I will be honest. From here on out. Just—

"Shut up!" She grabbed her plate and flung it at him. He saw it happening. Slowly. It hit him in the chest, squarely and painfully, before the porcelain hit the ground and shattered. "I never want to see you again. If I do—if I see Sasori, or a cousin, or anyone near me or my mom I will call the police. Just get out. Get out." She pointed to her room. Rigid with finality. "Leave," she commanded with authority pulled from the depths of her person.

"Okay," he utilized his fleeing voice to confirm he heard the terms. He turned on his heel slowly. The lasagna seeped into his clothing and dripped off of him. He was spreading the mess with every step he took toward her bedroom. He could see all his things lined up for him. He grabbed his phone from his pocket. He dialed the last number he had called. "Turn around." He did not wait for any confirmation before he hung up. He walked to the balcony. He tugged closed the curtains after checking the lock on the sliding door. Minato gathered his things and walked out of the bedroom. He stepped into his loafers that were by the rack. She had not looked at him once much less called out. She was not going to stop him.

Mind made, no notice

The distance vast, no accord,

When did we break far?

He was left to wonder—alone. Minato closed the door softly behind him, not even allowing it to click. He waited until his phone vibrated in his pocket to signify Sasori was here. He frowned. She never put her chain on. Minato stepped away from her threshold—from her home. He pressed his eyes closed. He could just make out her muffled sobs. She had not moved from her spot in the kitchen.

The wind moved through the silk of his suit jacket and pale blue shirt. Slapping it against him. He made his way down the stairs. The cold numbed his face so that it matched his heart.

Chapter Text

She rocked back to sit on her heels. The once-white towel had gone a rusty red having been used to smear marinara sauce around on her kitchen floors. She brought the back of her hand to swipe at her cheeks, her sticky palm orange, and her same-hued fingers curled toward it. Her treacherous eyes kept crying and like a leaky faucet, there was nothing within her capabilities to do to stop it. She did not even know where the shutoff valve was to stop the seemingly endless supply of emotion. Torment.

Alone, safe from pain,

Laughter once bright, left silence—

Lonely, deeper sting

Sakura sniffled loudly without concern of being overheard. Her nose was red and her scleras were pink and gradually darkened by the minute. She exhaled shakily, eyeing the bits of ground beef sitting on top of the smeared sauce. She clambered onto her feet, gripping the sides of the counter to stabilize her legs. Pin and needles pricked at her. She could not feel her feet. She held on with a white knuckle grip until she could. Sakura pulled out her phone from her dress pocket, tossing it on the very counter that had been her support. She gave it one hard look before she reached down to the cabinet under the sink—her red and green eyes level with the lip of the sink. Her hand groped blindly for a wooden hilt. She pulled without care or forethought. Cleaning supplies at various levels of empty clattered and fell forward at being disturbed so unceremoniously and violently as she dragged the metal head along the flimsy cabinet floor. Screeching. Sakura straightened. The head of the hammer rested in her palm.

Without a second thought, she brought it over her head before swinging it straight down, free of any hesitation. Bang. The screen cracked. She hit it again. Bang. The body bent. Bang. Another strike, another strangled scream she would not let past her clenched teeth that were bared. She struck the hammer to her phone until it was nothing but garbage—a total waste. Bangbang. Again and again. Until there was nothing left. Her fingers grazed the once cold hammerhead made warm by her violence—abandoning now that too as it has served one purpose. She moved away from the counter, stepping over the discarded towel and the far-from-clean floors.

She snagged the flowers—still in their vase—from the dining table and held them to her, moving to her room. The orange prints on the counter and the pulls of the cupboards, the new fractures in the countertop tile were all unnoticed in their insignificance to her. She flipped the light switch. Artificial light filled the room. With a growl, she tore open the curtains that he had no doubt closed as a parting controlling move. Because she refused to see him as anything but what he was: manipulative. He was her captor. She let him be.

Sakura tugged at the door. It opened only to stop after an inch of slide. She bit back a scream. A wounded, pulsating cry deep inside her throat. Sakura bent down—still holding the vase, water spilling onto her toes through her tights—and removed the wooden block he had wedged in the door. She tossed it aside. The carpet muffled its clatter. The door slid open. She grabbed a fist full of the flowers by the stems and threw them over the railing of her balcony and onto the asphalt of the parking lot. She turned over the vase, shaking what was left. The flowers rained down slowly. The water beat them to the ground first. She set the vase on the railing of the balcony and turned—not remembering if she locked the door after pulling it back to the latch. She stomped into the bathroom, her dress was already over her shoulders. She was indifferent to where it fell. She washed her hands before addressing her face. Sakura scrubbed vigorously. Until her skin was as red as her nose and eyes. She rubbed off a layer of skin as she dried. Bright red like she had been roasting in the direct summer sun for hours. Wet, pink strands clung to her forehead and cheeks. She turned off the tap. It took two tries as in the first attempt, she did not move the handle far enough. She did not make the same mistake twice.

Sakura went to her closet. She pulled the first garment she could find from the hanger. A turtleneck knit dress. She shoved herself inside. She left her tights on despite the dress going to her ankles and the dampness of the lycra at the tops and bottoms of her feet. Sakura rummaged, bent over, for her next goal. She found the carefully folded-up duffel bag in the corner. She pulled it toward her with her foot. She shook it back into a semi-open state. She moved to her dresser. She grabbed fistfuls of clothes indiscriminately—uncaringly—to shove into the duffle bag. When the bag was bloated with her balled-up clothing, she faced her door, avoiding the left side of the bed. She swiped her computer from her nightstand on the right on her way out of the room.

She slipped into her boots without bothering to zip up the back, grabbed her keys from the decorative bowl, and closed the door with a sharp inhale of cold breath, leaving her problems and the consequences contained in the walls of her apartment, unaware that she had yet to stop shaking.

xXx

Sasori's brown eyes darted from the road to the rearview mirror before he glanced back at the asphalt lined with yellow dashes only to find nothing had changed in front of him. The same could be said for the inside of the car. His hand clenched against the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

"Look man," he tried again to start again knowing full well it was a dead-end. "I didn't know she was listening," he tried to explain with what he knew of his own actions leading up to Minato's arrival, his departure, Minato's phone call, and finally the two of them being in the car driving down the asphalt road.

Turn around: Minato had not said anything more to him than those two words spoken into the phone in a curt tone, verbally at least. The cold fury in his eyes—eyes he kept pointedly away—and the tight set of his jaw spoke volumes all without a single passage of sound. He was furious. But also calm. It was contained. There was no threat of it spilling over in his voice or influencing the rise of his hand. He was grounded in his anger. Sitting with it. Surrounded by it so that only he suffered the full brunt of it. Everyone else—Sasori—just had to deal with the edges: the silence—the ramifications.

Minato did not say something—anything—because there was nothing more that words could say than the situation did not. But that did not stop Sasori from filling it so he could pretend that the silence was not boxing him in, ready to crush him. A solid pressure on his chest that would not go away.

"Are you hurt?" He inquired, glancing at the rearview mirror. No one was behind them. No one was in front of them. "She's got good aim. Dead center. Probably left a bruise," he murmured to fill the silence left behind by his question. Ignored. Disregarded. "You could have changed your clothes at least. You smell like a dumpster," Sasori complained half-heartedly; the redhead's voice had climbed to a grumble. It was such a waste of perfectly good lasagna. From his peripherals, he saw the sauce on his navy suit, and light blue shirt, sauce that was permeating the cabin of the car so strongly due to the heat from both the vents and Minato's skin. The garlic was pungent. Sasori cracked a window, rolling it down as he drove. Even in the lack of light barely impacted by the row of dimly glowing lights, every detail seemed to be visible. And yet, they denied the obvious. The bridge up ahead was empty. The moon was nowhere to be found.

"Home?" he asked with more confidence that at least this Minato would answer. He was forced to.

"No," the blond said in a soft voice that barely rose over the cold rush of air.

Sasori suppressed audible frustration. He made a sharp U-turn when a turn-out lane became available, cutting three lanes at once. Tires screeched. Minato continued to stare out the window, avoiding the close-up of his own reflection.

Her skin was tight. She did not moisturize after mauling her face. The cold air slapping against her tender skin served as a painful reminder with each and every repetition. She held the key between her thumb and index finger. It was out and ready to be inserted into the black metal lock of the black security door—lined up perfectly. The porch light was off. The night was still. The neighborhood glittered softly from the glow of warm yellow light from the street lamps that denoted every third house.

It was a mistake. A glaring one. She should have texted her mother before destroying her phone. She did not think it through clearly. Her decisions—her mistakes—were now impacting others. Her mother. Maintaining a routine was crucial for Mebuki to maintain her health. Sakura was being selfish, she realized as she stood on the porch with the key in hand. The thought of getting back in her car which was parked out front in the street and driving back to Tani crossed her mind. Or she could try to get a hotel and come back in the morning like a sane person. These were the thoughts in her head. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Logistics.

Things she should have thought of before she made an hour's drive in nearly two. She had taken the wrong exit—a whole thirty miles after the one she was supposed to take—in her absentmindedness. She was even more scatterbrained now.

Getting behind the wheel of a car isn't a good idea.

But she looked over her shoulder all the same. She had some emergency blankets in her car from the last time she, Ino, and Karin went on a multi day and night hike—when Karin's off-again on-again long-distance boyfriend Kankuro, called it quits yet again for the hundredth and one time, only to beg for her to take him back when they finally had reception again three days later—she could make do for one night in the car.

I can move a couple of streets in so none of Mom's neighbors see.

With a soft sigh of resignation that she would not find a better alternative, Sakura turned on her heel slowly. She had just taken all but three small steps (dragging her feet quite literally)—still well within the confines of the porch—when light pooled at her feet. She slumped her shoulders, feeling what remained of her energy seep out of her.

I'm sorry Mom.

She turned around yet again when there was no change, her eyes finding her mother's. The woman was in her robe and house slippers. But the frown she wore was the most familiar thing. Sakura's night was about to get even longer. Mebuki's arms were crossed and her guardian Cheddar was at her feet, chattering angrily at being woken at this hour and that too not to be fed. Mebuki said nothing as the security door swung open for Sakura to catch, which she did. The pinkette dipped her head stepping through it. Mebuki was already walking past the lit living room to the small entryway to the dining room table that eventually led to the kitchen. It smelled warm, clean, and familiar. It brought her some semblance of comfort. Curling up with a throw draped on the couch sounded like the best thing in the world right now. If only it were an option. Sakura closed and locked both doors wordlessly before kicking off her boots, only to arrange them neatly on the shoe mat by the door, and carry herself and the black duffle bag on her shoulder toward where her mother had disappeared.

A cup of tea was already waiting for her in her favorite pink mug with a cat paw print on the side. Sakura pulled the oak chair from the table—not letting it scrape against the slate gray tile of the kitchen—and sat down. She wrapped her hand made cold by her indecision around the warm mug.

"How did you know I was outside?" Sakura asked into her tea. She could make out the small yellow cat that was hidden under the yellowish tint left by the not-fully steeped green tea. Catico—because she was a calico cat—was completely submerged.

"Mothers just know these things, Sakura," Mebuki answered with a sigh. She leaned back against the counter. She was rubbing the center of her chest with the heel of her palm as if trying to soothe down heartburn with sheer tenacity and wishful thinking. "You'll understand when you're a mother."

Of course.

A comment she had heard countless times before brought a new wave of stinging tears to her eyes. It cut deeper than it had before, deeper beyond the slight prick intended to annoy her into silent compliance. Sakura pulled her mug until it rested under her chin. Maybe the steam would evaporate her tears before they could grow heavy enough to fall.

"Bug?" Her mother's voice called out, concerned.

"M-mom," she stumbled on the word. She closed her eyes. She could not face her shame. She pressed her temple against the softness being offered to her. Mebuki's arm wrapped around her head, her palm pressed flat on her forehead. Sakura was vaguely aware the tea was being worked free from her hands. She used those hands to cling to her mother. Mebuki's fingers were in her hair, rubbing soothing circles. "C-can I stay?" Sakura buried her face into Mebuki's chest. The question came out muffled but it did not hide her pitifulness, her timidness.

"Bug," Mebuki said the term of endearment fondly. "Of course. This is your home."

Sakura pressed into her tighter, trying to squeeze out her sins—to purge herself of them.

xXx

He lifted his head up at the knock on the ajar door. He saw the familiar face of Jiraiya standing there, his fist still against the frame. His dark eyes scanned the modest room with a twin bed, a small nightstand that also double-dutied as a desk and a lamp. The was a lone window, frosted and just big enough to allow some air circulation if desired. The overhead small white ceiling fan also aided with that in the hotter months.

"You sure you're going to be okay with the bedding?" Jiraiya gestured to the sparse plaid blanket. "Everything else smells like a nursing home. It's been a while since this room was used." He leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his long white kimono-style gray pajama set.

Minato lifted a disbelieving brow, curling his fingers gently around the object in his palm—a tool for distraction from the dulled slightly, aching pang from where the dense lasagna that might as well have been a baseball hit him.

"You haven't been put in the dog house by Senju Sage?"

Jiraiya scoffed gruffly, taking offense. "Oh, I have earned my fair share of visits to the guest bedroom. I might make her mad enough to kill me at times, but even she doesn't want to deal with me bellyaching about my back all day. I haven't slept down here since before your first growth spurt." Or since he stopped fighting his wife's adamant and correct diagnoses of sleep apnea but Minato did not need to know all the gory details.

"Simpler times," Minato's lip pulled up at the taste of nostalgia.

"In some ways," he scratched at his jaw—he felt the rough stubble that would need to be addressed in the morning—his dark eyes migrating to Minato's hand for a moment before flickering back up to his face. "You haven't stopped finding trouble though. So much for becoming wiser with age."

"It was always Shika who was in trouble. Shika and Rihito. Uncle's always been easier on me so I just took—take— the blame," he shook his head freeing himself of the past. He gripped the edge of the frame with his free hand. This mistake was his though. Completely. "Thanks for letting me crash. Thank Senju Sage too."

"Don't let her hear you call her that," Jiraiya's face was without mirth. "Are you sure she doesn't need to see you?" His expression contained his ample skepticism in a manner that just his tone could not.

"Barely feel it," he pressed his palm to where there most definitely was a bruise. It may even have been second-degree. The ink and faint light hid a lot. "The ice helped." The swelling was not as bad even if the tenderness persisted.

"We don't have to talk about it now," the very tall man rubbed the back of his neck. The skin under his eyes was dropping heavily with more than just age.

"I would much rather we don't talk about it at all," Minato sighed through his nose, running a hand through his hair. "It's late."

"I know," Jiraiya rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue, nearly splitting it in two on the dryness of his tone. "I was asleep for three hours before you showed up here wearing someone's dinner with Puppet Boy in tow. I don't need the details, I just need to know if there's going to be more excitement like last time."

"Fair enough," he uttered with resignation, his shoulders hunched over slightly. "This mess I made myself. I'll clean it up myself."

She'll cool down. She'll be rational. She'll think it through. She'll come around.

The words, the sentiments, repeated in his head like a chant. "The blanket is fine," Minato raised his eyes to the man studying him intently from the otherside of the room. "I run hot."

"Mustn't be all that bad if you still have terrible jokes."

"My sense of humor hasn't left me yet," he quipped, colorlessly.

Jiraiya scoffed and opened his mouth like he was about to say something that only he found to be clever but he must have thought better of it at the last moment because Jiraiya was closing his mouth and backing away.

"Night," his voice came through the gaps of the now-closed door.

"Night," Minato said back, returning the shared sentiment. There was nothing good about this night. He set the small paper crane on the base of the table lamp. Purple and perfect. He sighed, expelling all the air from his lungs at once, tapping the base. The darkness surrounded him but his eyes remained fixed on the spot where he had lowered the origami crane.

She heard the sniffling before she fully stepped into the living room from the dining room. Her blonde brow furrowed. Mebuki picked up her movements. The TV was on. A clump of pink hair was visible against the armrest of the couch. Sakura was babbling incoherently, stopping just long enough to blow her nose—loudly. Mebuki set the tray she was holding down on the coffee table.

"You're crying," the words came out more crass than she had intended. The hand that brushed her daughter's hair from her forehead was soft though—where it mattered.

"H-h-how," Sakura wailed, not bothering to sit up. She yanked a couple of tissues that were nestled against her stomach and brought them to her puffy eyes, dabbing them. Distraught.

"Sakura," Mebuki leaned forward, not remembering when she sat on the coffee table. "Bug, what happened?" To her surprise, Sakura pointed behind her. Mebuki's concern grew to confusion as she looked over her shoulder—a commercial. There was a dog with sad eyes behind a chain link fence, tethered to a stake in the ground. A thick metal chain connected him to it. It was shivering in the rain. The whole thing was rather pitiful. The sad piano music did not help matters for the positive. She turned back to her daughter, perturbed. "What?"

"The p-p-poor b-ba-babies!" Sakura sobbed out the stammered words, covering her face with her hands. Devastated.

Mebuki rolled her eyes upward. She counted to three very slowly. It did not help at all. "I brought you a sandwich. Don't make a mess," she bit out with sternness, rising to her feet. "And take a shower."

Sakura shook her head—face still hidden—in misery. Mebuki threw up her hands and stocked out of the room, grumbling choice words, her once raised hopes crash landed into the ground headfirst.

He could feel his dark almond-shaped, curious eyes focused intently on him, not in a stare-down but more in interest, like he was trying to identify him. Not all that different from the way a new but vaguely familiar specimen was studied. He snapped his fingers. His quick-to-color cheeks turned pink with excitement.

"I know who you are!" The teenager exclaimed with a big inhale of air. "You're the two-twenties guy," he nodded his head. "Yeah! The big tipper!" His finger was pointed in Minato's direction. He could see it from his peripheral vision. "What were you doing in that dump all the way out in Tani for?"

Isn't that the million ryo question.

"Hey, Kid," Jiraiya glowered at the brunette, "what did we talk about huh? Did I just waste thirty minutes of my dwindling life blowing hot air in your ears?" He demanded to know from across the table. His hand was on his bent knee, while the other held a blue bowl of rice with white Sakura flowers. "Don't mind him, Minato. He's still being house-broken," he explained without ever taking his eyes off the teenager left in their charge. There was an ease of repetition there in the exchange.

"Nawaki," Tsunade tapped the brunette on the back of the head twice in reprimand before he could give Jiraiya a piece of his mind if only to prove that there was in fact something between the very ears Jiraiya brought into question. "Behave," she whispered and it was not without menace because the boy clamped his mouth shut.

Sorry Kid, didn't mean to get you in trouble. Just not in the conversing mood.

Minato feigned to be unaware of the look that passed between the only two other adults at the dinner table. Minato picked up his chopsticks for the first time that night and grabbed a piece of chicken katsu from the oval, white plate in the center. He brought it to his mouth and chewed, again not oblivious to the way their shoulders relaxed a margin. The air was less invasive even if the silence was only disrupted by the clicking of wood to ceramic and the occasional sound of slurping or chewing—the majority of which were attributed to Jiraiya himself.

Minato continued to chew despite it—everything—tasting like nothing. It was the least he could do.

Her side was beginning to hurt from all the pressure put on her hip. Sakura wiggled against the cushions but comfort continued to elude her. With a sigh, she sat up. Her hair was a mess—a bird's nest that rested on the top of her head. Her pink, plush robe—with a hood that had a unicorn horn—was wrapped around her tight. She held the expanded hood with a careful hand. With the other, Sakura grabbed the blue hot water bottle and her pillow and threw them to the other side of the couch before her head found its place on the pillow once more. Lazily, she held the hot water bottle—Mebuki was far too paranoid to trust herself with a heatpad much less a heated blanket—over her abdomen. The painkillers only took the edge off her cramps slightly.

"Congratulations on not being pregnant!" Her body seemed to shower her with unwanted gifts of bloat, fatigue, acne, tender breasts, joint pain, and a whole cornucopia of unpleasant emotions brought on by her hormones—well in part. Crying her eyes out at the damn animal abuse commercial she had seen half a million times over the years should have been a warning she heeded with more seriousness than she had. Her left hip was now the one her body was applying pressure on. Sakura tilted her head down into the front of her hoodie—she was wearing her robe backward—she opened her mouth and let her tongue dart past her lips. The pink snake latched onto a couple of pieces of cold, salty popcorn. It brought them back successfully into the dark cave of her mouth. She frowned as she watched the couple deliberate yet again, trying to find reasons not to buy the first house they saw and were clearly so in love with.

"You can change the paint colors!" Sakura groaned in frustration, throwing up a hand, as she repeated exactly what their realtor—and probably former friend now after this experience—kept reminding them with a smile that was becoming exceedingly even more fake than the show she was on, with each cheerful reminder.

"Idiots," Sakura concluded with a huff. She lowered her eyes at the soft meow. Cheddar flicked his long tail. The naked nub danced. Sakura frowned at him. "What do you want?" She asked, irately. The tabby licked his lips while maintaining eye contact. "You can't have popcorn, Cheddar. It's got salt and you could choke on a partially cooked kernel. And it will get stuck in your teeth. Teeth that I am in no mood to brush and lose half the skin on my arm in the process. No, thank you very much." She lapped up more popcorn with her tongue. He opened his mouth and meowed again. "That won't work. I'm not a sucker…."

Yes. Yes, I am.

Sakura tore her eyes away from the expectant amber gaze of the cat and returned it back to the screen. "Oh my God," she rolled her eyes. "Do you two even like each other?" She asked the couple incredulously. "Just let the woman have her crafting nook, Greg! She's already agreed to let your mother have the master with the ensuite. Take the win!" She implored the stranger, emphatically.

Mebuki stood in the opening that connected the living and dining rooms with a severe frown on her face.

"Unbelievable," Sakura tutted at the TV, raising her head just enough to take a sip of the can of room-temperature beer. She let out a satisfied sound. Ice-cold was not her friend right now. She nestled it next to her navel as she was far too lazy to extend her arm to the coffee table.

Mebuki's green eyes landed on the gray tabby at her feet. "When is it going back?" His amber eyes seemed to ask her. Mebuki kissed her teeth, spinning around until she was facing the opposite direction. Cheddar was in front of her, his tail nearly vertical on his way to lead Mebuki to his snack cabinet.

One problem at a time.

The train passing by on the overhead bridge he was parted under, rattled the body of his vehicle. It was felt in his teeth. Minato tucked the strands of sunshine-yellow hair into the black skull cap. His fingerless gloves were navy and well-worn; the yarn was peeling back, they moved up to pull the silver zipper's teeth closed. He stepped out of his car. Covering his head with the navy hood. The hoodie was baggy. Two sizes too big. He shoved his hands into the stomach pocket to keep his fingers from tracing the hole. Jiraiya's old gardening clothes that had been shoved into a plastic trash bag in the corner of an old rickety shed that would surely give him tetanus if he gave it half a chance.

I need to check my vaccination records.

His shoes were scuffed. They too were well worn. His old weight-lifting shoes that he never got around to tossing out. They always sat in the back of the trust of his car in a nondescript bag just in case he forgot a pair of shoes. He never did. But they suited his purpose just fine now. It was dark. There was a slight drizzle, which facilitated the rising of odors that had seeped into the asphalt and concrete enough that they wafted up his turning-pink nose. The sleepless nights that darkened the sensitive skin under his eyes attested to a different set of facts. It was all a matter of perspective. He could hear again. The train was long gone. He walked under the bridge. The yellow sign of the liquor store was flashing—strobing almost—so he kept his head down to avoid transforming his hunger headache into a migraine. Minato sniffed, pulling back the thin run until he felt it in the back of his throat. The wind was doing a number on his lips. But he was going for the frost-bitten look, for it too could be mistaken for something adjacent to what he was perpetuating.

He walked along the perimeter of the chain link fence that protected nothing but an empty lot. A flier slapped against the telephone pole in defeat. Its journey of freedom came to an unceremonious end. He kept moving. His head bowed. His left leg dragged slightly behind his right. He sniffled and sniffled. He cleared his throat loudly. He waited at the edge of the street. Behind the liquor store was an alley and like all allies there was an overflowing blue dumpster with both trash and graffiti tags. His shoulders were hunched forward. He was minimizing himself. A contradiction. Because he was also ensuring he was noticed. That was the reason why he stood under the flicking headlight. A halo around his navy, fleece ensemble. His baggy pants hung at his hips with a faded belt. He had borrowed one of the Professor's. Was it still borrowing if he did not ask?

I'll put it and everything else back.

It was close enough. He was looking but he was not. His eyes were low but he saw the exchange. Two men huddled together trying so hard to seem natural and having a reason for being there. Naturally, it only made them stand out more. If the police cared for such matters, they would have long been arrested. But it was in the heart of their territory. Even the safest places on earth had borders with trouble. This was Yuma's blight.

Be patient.

He remained rooted with his toes almost curling over the curb. He could not move a step forward—not even a nose—because that would be an oversight that he could not afford; an aggression. So he remained still long after the customer had purchased what he sought and left nothing but the procure behind. He blinked slowly to keep the man in his sights.

It's not him.

The face across the street who shoved some bills of ryo in his pocket was not the one he was searching obsessively for. It was so close that at a glance and at a distance it could be mistaken. But that was true for any clansmen. One face bled into the next.

I know you clocked me.

The man pretended to not notice him but a few more tense moments of neither moving had him quickly exhausting his patience. He stiffened in a weighed battle against some internal demons. Demons he lost too because he quickly glanced both ways before he ended up in the quiet street. Cars lined up and parked on either side. His black hair—darker than night—pressed flat against his face and neck by his own skullcap. A black wool neck gaiter failed to completely hide his wind-whipped lips.

"You just going to stand there?" He asked with clear agitation at being the one who had to come to the customer. "You deaf, dumb, blind, or stupid?" The pointed question was punctuated with a hacking and spit splattering on the asphalt. He shoves his hands into his pockets.

Two of those are the same.

Minato never let his cobalt eyes rise past the man's nose. "I-Is," Minato stammered with a voice without strength. Meek and just begging to not be taken as a threat. "I need—"

"What do you think you need?" The man asked, his face impassive but there was a harshness in his eyes. "Huh?"

Minato's tongue came out to moisten his lips. "Where's Limu?" He scratched his scalp before giving his cheek the same treatment. Red marred his pink skin. Everything was threatening to go numb.

The man's guard seemed to rise at the question—at the mention of the street name that Domeki parted with after a steep bargain.

"A y-y-year a-a-a-go, I h-h-h-hurt my leg," Minato grabbed at the appendage that was jutting out awkwardly. Lame. "I could have been somebody!" He declared with adamance in one moment that took nearly everything out of him.

The Uchiha held up his hand. "I don't need the whole sob story." His visage was without sympathy.

"L-Limu," he said the name his clients knew him as with desperation. Limu what seaweed—nori—was commonly known as all the way out in Water. The Uchiha probably told himself he was being very clever when he picked the name, assuming it was not thrust upon him.

"You don't know?" He asked, his bottom jaw sticking out past his top. His features were not as symmetrical or sharp as the main house. He was a nobody which explained why he was outside in near freezing weather well past two in the morning.

Minato shook his head mindlessly. As dense as a bowling ball.

"There was a vacancy," the Uchiha rubbed his pink nose. The sign flashed. They could hear it buzzing. "It got filled. The free market." He waved his hand back and forth with layers of forced nonchalance. He was mighty proud of himself.

Minato's right foot stepped back. He shook his head just short of trapping it between his fingers. Murmuring to himself. "I need…I-I-I n-need—"

"Stop blabbering!" The man hissed, shoving Minato against the chained linked fence behind him. It rattled loudly. Shaking. A forearm across his chest held him in place. Menacing in its placement. The stuttering and stumbling man eyed him with wide eyes that contained something masquerading as fear. His mouth was held open agape. The Uchiha crossed the invisible line. "You'll attract attention man!" The Uchiha spat. Some of it landed on Minato's cheek. The blond cowered, he brought his hands to cover his face. He made himself as small as he could. The man kissed his teeth, sucking back a breath at the pitifulness. He took a step back and shoved his hands in his pockets. "What do you need?" He asked with more control.

"L-Limu," Minato worked out through trembling lips. He avoided eye contact at all costs. He could see the gun at his waistband. The safety was more likely than not off.

"Limu's gone," the one who took over his street corner said. "Anything else I can do for you?" He eyed him up and down. "You're a mess."

"I-I," Minato shook like a leaf. "I need…I got hurt," he pierced together his words. "Freak a-ac-accident. I need—"

"You need a fix," the Uchiha ran his thumb along the edge of his jaw, scratching, cutting him off with total disregard. "Powder, pills, or vein. Pick your poison." Minato hesitated. The Uchiha's dark eyes darted behind him. "Look man," he sighed. "I have customers lining up. Take it or leave it."

It was true. They were waiting by the liquor store. They were not stepping inside. That was how Minato knew he was speaking the truth. They were drawing attention. More eyes meant more opportunities to be recognized.

I need to make this quick.

There was no more extracting information. Minato's priorities shifted. "Pills," he said, reaching into his pocket. His hand stopped just before he pulled out the ryo to complete the transaction. "Where's Limu?" He asked, desperate and unable to completely let go. He had to try one more time.

The Uchiha rolled his eyes. He ground the smoldering cigarette on the ground with the heel of his boot. "Gone." A smirk stretched across his lips. "Did he top you off?" He asked in a cruel voice. He dangled a small plastic bag. Three blue pills inside. "You want them or not?"

Minato nodded his head. He slipped him two tens and a five. It was a wrinkly mess. He held the baggie with both hands like it was his salvation and not what they really were: an overpriced disappointment.

The Uchiha's lip curled in disgust. "Get out of here," he barked.

Minato had already turned around. He kept his head down and his eyes low as he dragged his left leg behind him. His posture straightened. His leg magically found function again when he was under the bridge. Out of sight. Minato opened the car door. His hands curled around the wheel. He could see his breath even inside.

Masanori was not at his corner at the edge of Uchiha territory. He honestly did not know what to expect. The odds of Masanori slinging pills, powder, and liquid on a random street corner after he failed to kill the Yellow Flash were next to zero. But he did not expect dead end after dead end.

Even if had found Masanori tonight as long as he had been planted in Uchiha soil, Minato could not touch a hair on his head. If he was anything like his replacement was, it would not take much to get him to cross over to neutral ground. And if he did, when he did, Minato would be waiting to capitalize. It was more than a thought. It was more than bravado. It had to be. Because Masanori was still out there which meant she was not truly safe. Konoha was big. Over ten million people lived in Konoha. Yuma housed close to three million alone. He needed to make it smaller. Much smaller.

Then, maybe then, Minato could sleep.

The door opened. The key turned. The car turned on. The headlights did not. He drove along the edge of Uchiha land. The lights flicked to life once he had left it behind him. Another fruitless path.

xXx

Bone wrapped by soft flesh rapt against the door even softer. Green eyes blinked open. There was just darkness around. Disoriented, a head of dark blonde hair pushed up from its gray pillow. A hand darted out to the bedside table feeling, without seeing, for the lamp. Warm fingers found cold metal. They tapped twice. It was still dark. She tapped again. An expulsion of annoyance—a huff—was picked up by her right ear, not too far from where her head had been.

"Mom," her daughter's voice called out both from too far away and much too close.

"Sakura?" Mebuki asked despite only one person in the world who addressed her in such a manner. "Why is it so dark? Did the power go out?" Mebuki tried to remember in which direction Sakura's voice had come from. Her head tilted like a satellite.

There was a quiet sound. A chuckle maybe. Her daughter's voice was light when she spoke. It sounded a little off. "Your sleep mask, Mom. You still have it on."

Mebuki's hand—lined with wrinkles and thinning skin—darted out to her face. "Oh," she said with traces of embarrassment when she felt the smoothness of silk instead of the textures of her skin. Mebuki pushed up the floral-print mask of various shades of pink to her forehead. She blinked. It was still dark but she could make out the outline of her daughter standing there in the doorway holding it as if for support with one foot over the other, wearing one of Sakuto's old shirts. Mebuki tapped the lamp just once this time. Dim light was enough to illuminate her features for the backlit Sakura—the hallway light was on at the lowest setting—to read. "What is it?" She asked because Sakura would never get out with it otherwise and Mebuki rather needed her sleep. She did not nap sporadically during the day like her cat and daughter.

"Can I," Sakura swallowed her pride. Her eyes were avoidant and her tapping fingers on the frame were nervous. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

Mebuki furrowed her brow, her lips automatically pulled into a frown. Sakura had her night guard in, that was why her voice sounded different. Mebuki was under the impression that Sakura had stopped doing that—grinding her teeth out of stress as she had back when they were homeless, then undergrad, med school, and through her residency. Sakura had told her as much. She was speaking with a slight lisp. The realization flooded her mind with memories of a much younger Sakura asking for the same—usually with a bunny stuffie in her hand that was dragging against the carpet and looking so pitiful. That past she did not outgrow it seemed. The clock on the nightstand read eleven minutes past three.

"You've been having nightmares," Mebuki stated without warmth—the cold utterance of fact.

Sakura sighed, her shoulders slumped all the while she continued to avoid her gaze. She played with the loose, thick braid. "It's not that…I've just gotten used to…." She clamped down on her lips, hard. "I couldn't sleep," she corrected the course of her statement with an oversimplification. She was restless and that too profoundly so.

Mebuki pressed her own lips together until it hurt. A lie punctuating—completing—a sentiment. Sakura had been almost too open with her—too candid—which was something the woman was not used to. For twenty-seven years the woman shared a bed with her husband. Longer than her son had lived. Sometimes she had to share it not just with him but with a child on nights there were loud thunderstorms or persistent dreams. It was always too small. The largest standard-size bed they made. Her husband was not a fan of futon mattresses. To go from being constantly poked, hugged, grabbed, and touched while she slept for almost three decades to just herself all those nights her husband worked late and did not get home until the next day was an adjustment. A hard one. A sleepless one. It was short-lived. Sakura found her way back to help her through it. Without even realizing it, Mebuki was sure. Mebuki shook her head out of habit.

"Sorry for waking you." Sakura's voice was defeated. She peeled one foot off the other. She was slow to turn. Her shoulders were so small. Inward. Minimized. She was trying so hard to not take up space.

Mebuki lifted the blanket on the other side. The shuffle had Sakura pausing. Green met green for a wordless exchange. The hallway light turned off. Only one source of illumination was left. The bed dipped. Mebuki smoothed out the blanket with a deft hand. Cheddar yowled in annoyance. Mebuki tapped the table lamp two times. It turned off. She settled on her back with her fingers laced together over her chest. She stared at the ceiling. It did not take long for Sakura's head to find her shoulder or for her to sling her arm across Mebuki's torso. Her shallow, even breathing followed not even moments later. Mebuki blinked slowly.

Sakura had gotten used to sleeping warm, it seemed, and that only brought about heartburn for the older Haruno woman to spend the rest of the morning hours trying to ease away, unfruitfully.

He grunted in exertion, exhaling as he went down. Inhaling as he came up. Sweat pooled from his brow splintering to drip off the tip of his nose or tail down paths down his neck. His arms glistened with perspiration. The ink was shiny like he had a coating of slick oil. The three toad sages on his back: Gamahiro (teal and on the right with his two tanto blades strapped to his back), Gamabunta (brown with a striking dark blue haori, in the middle with his pipe perched at the corner of his mouth lit and smoking sitting in a crouch) and Gamaken (magenta with black face markings and with his round shield strapped to his back and his sasumata standing tall and ready) moved up and down as he did complete and started yet another push-up.

His shoulder throbbed, his chest ached sore, and his arms were shaky but he pressed through. He had lost a lot of strength breaking his routine those consecutive weeks. It had been a deliberate choice when he had asked Haku to design the sages not in battle—as they were often depicted in fiction—nor at rest in mediation but somewhere in the middle. The tattoos on his back, the steady, imposing forces—with a fully bloomed Sakura tree whose branches extended over his shoulder blades and the trunk down the length of his side—were ready. They were prepared for a resolution. Equally for battle and for peace. That was his goal. And he believed Haku delivered. Long before Sakura breathed her admiration to only solidify and validate his choice and all the headache of logistics and design. The sages were just that, each and every one of them was a sage first and a warrior as a last resort. Peace before conflict. Calm before anger. The pen before the sword. Their philosophy—the lesson they were trying to teach in this passed-down allegory—was one that resonated with him for most of his life save that dark year—his first year without Shika.

He exhaled sharply, holding himself up. His teeth were clenched and his arm shook in protest before he even put all his weight on it so he could curl his left arm behind his back. Minato waited. He tested the arrangement before he lowered, deliberately until he was at ninety degrees. His lungs were free of air. He breathed in and slowly released the breath as he came back up. He started to count.

One. Two. Three….

Mebuki shamelessly did a double-take. Her threaded needle was pinched between her thumb and index finger as she peered over her reading glasses from her perch by the arm of the sofa.

"You're actually up," the thought in her head that she did not mean to share out loud came tumbling out of her mouth.

Sakura rolled her eyes. "You saw me get up, Mom," she ran her fingers through her hair—her washed and brushed hair, Mebuki noticed.

"I thought you went to nap in your room," Mebuki murmured in disbelief. She set aside the hem of the pants she was taking in after securing the needle. "You look presentable." She eyed her daughter from head to toe in her clean hair, long red coat, and dark tights. "Are you going to work?" She asked excitedly.

"Work?" Sakura looked at her confused. "I would have told you—" A knock interrupted her. Sakura's face brightened. She moved to open the door. From her vantage, Mebuki could see nothing other than the partially closed door over Sakura's back.

"Hello." She heard the bright voice of her daughter.

"Hello," a voice returned the greeting. Male. But higher, perhaps younger. Mebuki felt her stomach drop in disappointment she would never acknowledge. It was not Minato. "Sakura Haruno?" He asked, to further eliminate all doubt and hope that Mebuki had managed to muster on such short notice.

"That's me," Sakura laughed. Pleasant and completely fake.

"Great, can you sign here please?"

"Absolutely."

Mebuki watched with an elongated neck as Sakura leaned forward slightly to presumably sign the thing he wanted her to.

"You're all set. Have a good day."

"Thanks. You too!" Sakura sang right before the first door was closed—the security door—soon followed by the second. "Finally," Sakura exclaimed, tearing at the packaging with her teeth.

"What is it?" Mebuki's curiosity won out over her need to tell her daughter to act a little bit less like a heathen. Or a sloth depending on the scenario.

"My new phone," Sakura showed her the white rectangular device.

"What happened to your other new one?" Mebuki asked with a frown that only grew deeper when she watched her daughter shrug out of her coat to reveal not a dress or respectable clothing but a long t-shirt of an old band and what she thought were tights were actually leggings.

"I broke it with a hammer," her daughter answered without blinking.

"What?" Mebuki asked, alarmed, blinking over her reading glasses. She was not entirely sure that she heard right.

"The one before that was broken by a controlling jerk," Sakura smiled. "Do we have vodka?" She regarded the phone in her hand. "This thing is going to take ages to boot and set up. Oh! My computer." She sprinted from the room, leaving her mother to stare at the cat completely bewildered.

He put his phone face down the moment he stepped into the vicinity of the wooden bench he was sitting at in an open field park thirty minutes outside of the city. Minato pushed up to his feet and met him halfway, leaving his disposable coffee cup next to his book.

"How is she?" That was usually how the status reports started. Mianto crossed his arms over his black turtleneck-clad chest. His blue eyes were hidden away by the dark lens of his sunglasses.

"Fine," Sasori tried to reach the itch inside of his ear with his pinky. He pulled the bottom of the brown beanie to cover the tops of them. "At her mom's. Hasn't left the house since she left her place. Nephew's watching her now. All is quiet on the homefront." Sasori snapped his fingers before bringing his palm to cover the side of his fist. "Where do you need me?"

"Relieve Nara, go back to the house. Keep an eye on her," Minato spoke clearly and with dismissal.

Sasori furrowed his brow. "Bro, we all saw the news. They have their plea deals. They're doing time. That means the start of the next phase. I can help. I can hand—"

"You can help by keeping her safe," Minato cut him off without ever raising his voice.

"Nephew can watch her. He's perfectly capable," realization hit him in the head. "You don't trust me," he stated with impassiveness.

"Hora," Minato pinched the inner corners of his eyes. "I trust you," he said levelly.

"To babysit!" Sasori snapped. "Anyone can do that. Level zero, green-nosed little brothers can do that. You—"

"You will stay where I tell you," Minato navy eyes were without mercy. It was not up for discussion.

Sasori relaxed his balled hands. He blinked slowly. "Understood, Lieutenant." He gave a very sarcastic salute before turning on his heel. He pulled off his hat when he rounded the bend. The trees and dense shrub cover obscured him from view. The sun hitting his hair made it seem like it was on fire. He picked up his pace. His car was amongst the line along the curb. Sasori nearly tore off a hole in his patched bomber jacket, reaching for his phone. The bars were more than enough finally. He sniffed- rubbing his nose—before clicking his last call.

"Hey," he barked into the mic. "It's me." He slammed the car door closed, the sound of his voice swallowed by the cabin.

All that moved in response to the feet on the other side of the door were his cobalt eyes. As far left as they could possibly go. He lounged—somewhere between lying down and sitting—on the cot. The back of his palm—fingers loosely curled toward the ceiling—pressed against his yellow hair and forehead. A leg of the same arm stretched out in front of him. The other was pushed up at the knee. A book rested against that raised knee. Open and for the moment ignored.

"I didn't think I would find you here," Tsunade opened with traces of something heavier than conversational on her person.

"I've been keeping busy," he smiled, that smile of his that was more habit than emotion. It changed nothing about him.

I have nothing to show for it.

"You hardly sit still." She pressed her fist against her hip, cocking it. "How's your shoulder?"

Minato lowered his hand from his forehead and patted the ice pack held in place by a lazy bandage job. "It's nothing."

"You need to keep up with your approved exercises," Tsunade clicked her tongue. She waltzed into the room without an invitation and a conflicting thought. She sat on the edge of the cot, placing a black bag—her travel medical kit—against his leg. "All those damp push-ups will give you nothing."

"Except abs," he added his two ryo with a flash of a grin. "And maybe my sanity," he amended for propriety.

Tsunade's amber eyes hardened. She snapped open the top of the bag with enough force to cause the cot to groan. She began to push things around roughly. Her face was constructed out of anger. A level of anger that would impact her voice.

"You're not as young as you once were despite what the mirror might tell you," she scolded, not without the bitterness of her poorly concealed jealousy of said fact. He hardly looked a day over twenty-seven at a glance. Especially when he did not smile. "You need to keep that in mind before you push so far that I have to amputate your arm."

Minato made a face, closing the book but keeping his place with his thumb. "Do you just think of these scenarios in your downtime or…?"

"We all need hobbies," she retorted with traces of a smirk. Her maroon-colored fingers prodded his shoulder. "Move with me." He complied. Tsunade checked his range of motion. "What's she like?"

"You'd like her."

"Which is saying something because I don't like anyone," Tsunade shared what they both knew to be more or less true without color. "Any pain?" She asked him.

Minato shook his head. "There's barely even a scar."

"I noticed," Tsunade leaned back. The cot whined again. "Minato," she said his name with graveness in her voice. "There's still time to think this through. You don't have to do this."

"There's nothing left to think about," he answered firmly but not so much that it was rude.

And I do. I have to.

"Are you prepared?" She posed her question lightly despite its implications and potential being anything but. "That if you do this for her, that she may never look at you the way you want her to?"

Of their volition, his lashes closed over his eyes with one smooth motion. Heavy and absolute. Tsunade's words were not mere hyperbole or bleak for the sake of shock value. They were the words of someone who endured them, who lived them.

"I am."

Because he just wanted her to be happy and safe so that maybe one day she could smile openly again like she used to, whatever that may look like—whatever it may cost. A solid hand patting him on his shoulder lurched him out of these thoughts that he had no recollection of succumbing to.

"Takayuki Sumida?" Tsunade read from the title of the pale orange book with yellowed pages. "My gramps used to read that crap."

"It's acquired taste," he held the poems of love and hope closer to his person.

"That's one way of putting it," her voice was rough—abrasive—her eyes soft and hand warm. She squeezed his shoulder. "You know where to find me if you need to talk."

"Thank you, Senju Sage."

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "The Professor, Senju Sage, Flash," her lip curled in disgust. "It's like a terrible rag-tag D-list hero comic. Something the old bastard would write. Thank God he came to his senses and opened the coffee shop." She got up from the cot. She closed the bag she had not pulled a single tool or instrument out of. "He's making udon for dinner. Specifically for you not that he would ever admit it so you better not skip out again unless you want to have to answer to me," she threatened without batting an eye. Completely cold-blooded.

"I won't," he promised. He had no meetings or calls to make tonight. He nodded his head and held the position of the dip long after her heels had clicked away. Senju Sage was no stranger to heartbreak. She had more than enough for three people. She was resilient. She was strong. She was tenacious.

He reached for the purple crane. He turned it in his hands carefully before letting it rest in the center of his palm. His eyes stared past it.

She'd like you, Senju Sage. Sakura would like you too.

"Did you get laid off?" Mebuki opened strong but Sakura hardly reacted. The anchor on the news spoke in a low murmur over the sound of the fireplace cackling. "Fired?"

"No," Sakura answered, unbothered as she blew on her tea.

"Did you quit? Did the hospital mandate that you take time off again? Did something happen at work, Sakura?" Mebuki followed up with quiet desperation to make sense of how or why—if not both—her daughter who worked herself onto the other side of the medical clipboard not too long ago could be the same person who was practically fused at the hip to her sofa. It was starting to sag. She would have to replace the cushions if this kept up for much longer.

"No." The pinkette yawned. It was about time for her three-in-the-afternoon nap. She had another usually around seven, right before dinner.

"Did you win the lottery?"

"Geez, Mom," Sakura stretched out as far as she could, sighing in contentment when her ankles popped. "Just taking a sabbatical."

"What about Sakuto's clinic?" Mebuki pressed forward. She was at a loss. Both her children were born go-getters. She never had to be a helicopter parent before. They had woken themselves up for school and even on occasion waking her and Kizashi.

"I haven't really been taking walk-ins." She conveniently let off the fact that she was also not taking appointments either.

"Why?" Her hand, which was petting Cheddar's back, stopped movement. The cat's tail flicked angrily, slapping her on the wrist in a not-so-gentle demand that she pick up where she left off.

"Because I made a mistake, Mom," Sakura covered her mouth with the crook of her arm. The hand under her pillow caused it to shift. Sakura adjusted on the couch so she was pressed even more into the soft cushions.

"Is it over, Sakura?" Mebuki asked with her stomach in a knot.

"It's over," her daughter's answer came without emotion. It was insensitive to the burning left behind in her mother's belly. "I gave him an out and he took it."

"Why would you do that?" Mebuki found herself asking as she grasped for context so that her mind would not have to resort to weaving it together.

"Because I'm me. And because he's him, he didn't even fight for it."

For us. For himself. He didn't even try to defend himself or explain. I waited.

"What does that mean, Sakura?" Mebuki pressed. She stubbornly held the window that Sakura propped open.

"Do we have chocolate?" Sakura asked mostly rhetorically. Her fingers were busy working out a knot from her hair.

"No," Mebuki lied, daring not to think about the emergency stash that she kept in the back of a cupboard lest Sakura sniff out the truth. "Why don't you go to the store? I have a couple more things I need."

Sakura pulled out her phone with a sigh. "Do you know off the top of your head? I can put them in my cart."

Mebuki bit back a sigh of her own at her daughter's expectant green eyes. "You like talking to people. You need to talk to people," Mebuk stopped herself well short of asking her daughter "What the hell is wrong with you?" Because that surely would not be productive.

"Eh, just not feeling it today. And I've earned enough points for free delivery. So why not, right?" Sakura scratched her cheek, clearing some neon orange dust from the chips she had inhaled off her skin unintentionally.

Mebuki could list at least three but it seemed like a dead end. "Go for a walk. Go outside. Go see the sun."

"Outside is cold. It's overcast," Sakura nuzzled her face into the pillow and even went as far as rubbing her legs together. "Inside is cozy."

And I don't want to put on pants or a bra.

"What mistake did you make, Sakura?" Mebuki's patience and along with it her plan were nowhere to be found. "What did you mean that a controlling man destroyed your phone?"

Sakura flopped on her back. Her thumbnail was in between her teeth. "Should we get ice cream too?" She asked without looking up from her phone. "Dumb question. Yes. Ice cream. Always ice cream. Do you want mint chocolate chip as usual or are you feeling something different? There's a new peanut butter and chocolate swirl that seems interesting." Sakura made a sound of indecision. She would need to get whipped cream, sprinkles, and chocolate sauce too because tragically there was none at the house. "We'll get both. No such thing as too much ice cream. No way," she frowned. "Are they seriously out of...oh, never mind found it. The Cookies 'n Cream is among their popular flavors. Che, almost gave myself a heart attack." She tapped happily on her phone to presumably add the flavor to her cart. Mebuki wondered if the cart ever ran out of room the way Sakura was tapping away. "They have vodka that tastes like candy canes!" She exclaimed with glittering eyes. "Yes. Yes. Yes!"

"When are you going back to work, Sakura?" Mebuki held onto her anger by a thread. A thin, fragile thread.

"Not sure yet," Sakura shrugged dismissively. "Do you want the chocolate-covered almonds? Milk or dark?" She scrolled aimlessly, pausing every now and then.

"Sakura, you need to work," she said through clenched teeth.

"I have savings." Along with the emergency fund which was still holding up. "And the hospital said I could take up to six months off without having to file additional paperwork or lose our health insurance. So we're fine." Her eyes moved from side to side as she contemplated it. "We'll get both milk and dark. Oh," her voice went high. "They have yogurt-covered pretzels. Strawberry. Yes!" She cheered.

"Sakura, you need a purpose," Mebuki continued to fight tooth and nail for the conversation—the answers she was so desperate for.

"Maybe later," Sakura lowered her phone. She wiggled her fingers toward the cat. "Pspspspsp."

Cheddar hissed at her, hair rising on end.

"Tough crowd." Sakura rolled over onto her side, facing the couch. "Wake me up in thirty minutes, Mom."

"What's in thirty minutes, Sakura?" Mebuki asked for the sake of it.

"I'll order the groceries," she answered, yawning loudly. "Should give you time to think about what else you need."

Mebuki needed Sakura to go back home so that things could go back to normal. But she could not voice that any more than she could kick Sakura out or extract information from her. Mebuki sighed long-suffering. Cheddar tried to console her with a soft meow before he began to groom himself—something her daughter had not done in two days because she was counting. Oh, Mebuki was counting alright.

Time came to a complete standstill where he stood with his head bowed, his arms behind his back, and his feet shoulder's width apart. He wore his black suit with a black cashmere turtleneck. The naked branches of the Japanese Maple hung low near the dark windows. The bark was much lighter than the dark wooden accents in the interior. His ear—the one holding up the cigarette—perked at the sound of the chair moving—the body sitting up on the throne adjusted.

"So you finally decided to show me your face." The voice dragged out each syllable as he enunciated clearly. It was in his nature. He hated repeating himself. So he spoke slowly once. Only once.

I'm not preoccupied anymore.

He waited the appropriate amount of time—respectable—to ensure he was not cutting the boss off mid-thought. Shikaku was not a stranger to lengthy monologues—sharing his inward musings when it struck him the right time. It was his way of preparing the vessel, he called it.

"I wanted to have an answer for you as to what went wrong." It was the truth but like everything else, nothing was moving according to plan. Minato supposed it was fitting.

"So you have brought an answer to me?" Shikaku dragged a hand through his wiry goatee speckled with the more than occasional gray hair. Reproachfulness held in his dark eyes. The scars on his face made him appear that much closer to the post he held. Menacing. Cruel. Ruthless. Dangerous. All things Minato did not find him to be to his core. Only when provoked. The large tattoo on Shikau's back was fitting. He was a bear.

"No," he raised his head to meet Shikaku in the eye—an act that could be interpreted as aggression by the uninformed. It was a transgression but he held a belief that Shikaku would read him—read what was in his heart and thus his true intentions—just as he had been doing for nearly thirty years. "Not yet," he promised. He would learn and he would share. All in due time.

Grant me more time.

Time he could no longer spend elsewhere, delaying perhaps the inevitable. And that was why he could not harbor a grudge against Sasori. Not only was he incapable of such a thing but Sasori's mistake was not his, it was Minato's. He waited too long to tell her the truth after not waiting long enough to engage with her at all. Minato had yet to learn timing.

"Your mistake cost me over half a million ryo. And that's just the business expenses for the month." There was zero familiarity—give—in the way Shikaku regarded him. With one statement he made it clear there were no other relations other than one of the boss and his subordinate—a subordinate who was not making money but bleeding it.

Minato, without ever turning his head away from the figurehead, glanced at the bookkeeper. "Mr. Nara, could you kindly remind me of my net? Just how many ryo do I come out in the clear for this month?" He asked without blinking, eyes very much locked in straight ahead. "Has to be in the hundreds of thousands, no?"

Akina Nara, the Clan bookkeeper, inhaled sharply. His mouth hung open and his thick round glasses almost slid off his nose as they too were shocked at what they witnessed.

Hear me. See me. Understand me.

Shikaku's eyes narrowed into slits. Akina gaped in his direction as if not sure if he was supposed to honor the request by the First Lieutenant. His head moved from the faces which were frozen in a standoff. Each understood the other's plight it seemed. Shikaku had an image to maintain, he could not be soft on Minato. Minato's blunder was grave. It put the Clan at risk. It put the whole hierarchy at risk. The one so many had bled and lost their lives to maintain. He had to say what he did. He had to bring the loss of monetary funds to the forefront and that forced Minato to bring up his contributions. He was an asset. And he was not the type to let someone else point it out, not when the situation was still so charged. He accepted his faults and shortcomings on his own, so it was only right he did the same for his accolades. He did not need the Clan's validation. He only needed Shikaku's.

Please. I don't want to leave things with your disappointment in me too.

"Bring me an answer," Shikaku said at last. He leaned back into his wooden chair. The gold cufflinks glistened against his white shirt that reached past his black pinstripe suit.

Thank you, Uncle.

Minato bowed low and long at the hip with his fist against his heart. Time started up again when he was on the other side of the mahogany double doors.

xXx

The usually polished bamboo floors had a thin layer of dust preventing the overhead canned lights from reflecting their glow off of it. The air was stale. He had noticed that the moment he left the greenspace that surrounded his small adobe. It carried over the traditional style of the rest complex. Wooden walls, shoji doors, a genkan, a small but functioning kitchen with a hot plate. Air, light, wooden, and surrounded by green. The koi pond with the small waterfall was not far. He could hear the water splashing through the open windows—the first order of business after he had removed his shoes. It was clean. It was sterile.

Minato's eyes wandered around the enclosure when he slept. A futon mattress pushed up toward the far left corner, right in front of his wooden floor-to-ceiling wardrobes. They stretched from the window to the corner. They were girthy to accommodate all this clothing. A square pillow where his head rested sat idle. The blankets—green, sage—were folded and placed on the end of the mattress right where he had left it. His no-show socks glided against the floor, dusting it with each step. Polished prints against a layer of fine powder.

His desk was bare. Some photos were pinned to the corkboard on the wall above it. He traced the edges of the one his eye came back to. A head of yellow hair grinning with an arm slung around two different heads—they could pass as brothers at first glance. Shika was on his right and a younger Rihito was on his left. It was from New Year's. The papers were stacked neatly, held down by a weight on the rich wooden top. The pens were all accounted for inside the wooden holder. A small desk lamp. He turned around, sparing the garden a glance. An empty bird feeder hung from the titles that extended beyond the side of the structure. The birds must have stopped holding out hope for sustenance from it. Countless hours were lost staring out this window: thinking, observing, ruminating, planning, recharging.

A round area rug that he nudged away with his covered toes. He slowly lowered down to his knees. With his fingers, he felt the edges of the floorboard. He found the place where his nails latched, digging underneath the groves he pulled up. He sat back on his heels, the small stretch of bamboo flooring was set onto its brethren. He sighed, just sitting for a moment. Still. Unmoving. In that still, unmoving moment, his brain rested. There were no ripples. There was no thought. There was no change. There was only the moment.

A sigh, quiet and low was all that was needed to disrupt the tranquility. He reached forward, an arm disappeared into the crevice while a palm kept his balance. The plastic bag crinkled, he ignored the other objects he had moved from their spots of rest. The bag made even more noise as it was pulled out of the ground. The seals opened. He held a velvet box—a faded maroon—in his hands. The open—now empty—bag was put wayside by the uprooted floor. His lungs filled with air. He opened the lid. The box was lined with navy almost passing as black. In the center, his eyes were drawn to two shiny, glittering silver rings—an engagement crowned with a solitaire sapphire and a wedding with diamonds—in the box. The same rings that decorated his mother's fingers in what photos he had left to keep the fuzzing faces from his memories from completely unsharpening out of focus.

Mom.

A band, loose, rattled on the other side of the attached lid. Their hands were never far in life so it seemed fighting that their rings continued to maintain the set precedent.

Dad.

His lips pulled into a small smile—the right side higher than the left. He cleared his throat. "There's someone I want to tell you about," he said in a voice only meant for his ears to hear. Because volume was not a set prerequisite for where his parents were, they would hear. He knew they were listening, waiting for him to share.

So he did.

xXx

He adjusted the sizable duffle on his shoulder. His fingers were being pinched to the point they lost all color by the metal hangers of the garment bags slung over his back. The Maneki Neko

cat—who he had named so creatively 'Horseshoe' the only other object synonymous with luck he thought of at the time—chimed in his pocket. The key returned from where he had procured it. Minato tested the twist lock on the shoji door. It was more out of habit than anything. His things would be untouched and his dwelling undisturbed in the compound. He paused on the welcome mat to slip into his loafers.

"Mina!" A voice said with plenty of excitement to the point of being pushed to breathlessness. "It is you!"

It was automatic the way his mouth donned a smile as he straightened. His blue eyes came to confirm what his ears already knew. "Reina," his eyes crinkled. Her dark eyes filled with delight as they darted to the ground. Color flooded her pale cheeks. "How are you?" He asked with genuine curiosity. It had been a while.

"Me?" She gawked at him, too dumbfounded to remember her earlier shyness. "How are you?! Are you alright? You scared us half to death!" She admonished him with her hands on her hips. "You just disappeared on us! We had to rely on less than reliable second-hand accounts!" She continued to berate him for all that he put them through. Her black hair swayed in accordance with the stern shaking of her head.

"I'm sorry."

"We were just worried, that's all," she mumbled. The anger melted off of her immediately. "I went a little overboard." The bag held between her hands—the bottom of which rested against her knees—crinkled seemingly in a reminder. "This is for you!" She held out toward him from the bottom step of his engawa.

"For me?" He asked with a furrowed brow, moving down the three steps. His feet were now in the gravel. "You shouldn't have."

"It's nothing!" Reina insisted, face still flushed. "I didn't have any notice! It's just a little something I could scrounge together at the last minute."

Minato peered into the bag—holding it with one hand. "You made miso soup base last minute?"

"Well no," she puffed out her cheeks, blowing her long bangs from her forehead.

"You have a lecture as long as your arm waiting for you back at home," he offered her the bag back along with his words of caution to rethink it one more time.

"Worth it," Reina said with a shake of her head. "It will fix you right up." Her eyes lowered again. "Not that you look like you need it."

"Thank you, Reina. Tell your mother that for me."

"I will," she nodded her head, distractedly. Her hands were clasped behind her back. "She'll probably tell me to tell you not to be a stranger."

His lips quirked upward. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Don't worry about a thing, Mina. I'll take care of it," she said with so much certainty that it spilled into her eyes. There was a fire in them. "Everything."

He furrowed his brow and frowned, not liking the way that sounded. Ominous. She laughed at the increase in his seriousness. She waved it off with lazy wrist flicks.

"The winter festival," she explained, tone teasing.

Right, that.

Remembrance hit him as swiftly as a sucker punch to the back of the head. He did not have a hand free so he could not pat the back of his head in a sheepish gesture that he did not quite outgrow.

"You forgot," Reina stated with a flat brow and expression that scolded. "It's fine. You just focus on getting back to one hundred percent back then. And picking out a new kimono. No repeats, the aunties will never let you hear the end of it." She eyed him from top to bottom. "Stick to winters: blues, grays, black, maroon, dark greens—you get the idea."

"Thanks, Reina," his eyes crinkled. "Sorry to leave you with all the work."

She snorted, trying to turn a pebble into dust with her heel for lack of anything better to do. "The blame rests solely on Uncle's shoulders. He's the one who roped us into it every year."

It was true, the Nara Clan had four major festivals hosted on their acres and acres of city land where they pulled out all the stops, and no expense was spared. The fall festival, marking the start of the deer breeding season, the winter festival which runs for the last week of the calendar year and the first week of the next, the start of spring, and Obon—three days in mid-August. The winter festival was by far the largest undertaking. Work was all but ceased in those days as the alcohol ran freely and the food piled high on plates. Civilians were more than a little curious and in the past—before increased security—it was not uncommon for them to wander onto the grounds thinking it was a city-sponsored event just given the sheer size of it and the number of vendor stalls. The golden era as he remembered it back when both Yoshino and Shika were still alive. The winter festival was the closest thing to magic he had ever experienced. It had snowed once before. A year after his parent's death. Shikaku had taken a long look—watching him watch the snow—and said it was their way of telling him they would always look out for him. He had balled his eyes out. They ate food off of sticks. He later won a fish as a prize for one of the stall games. To date, it was his favorite winter festival.

"It's only because you do such a good job," Minato pointed out the fact.

Reina's cheeks flushed. She quickly looked away, caught staring when he was inside his head. "You make it sound like you don't do anything!" She said with roughness. "Unlike some people," she added with ample annoyance. "They're all your connections. The vendor gave us amazing rates. I don't know how you do it."

He chuckled. "You should give them more slack—some people, that is. Including unreliable second-hand sources."

She feigned considering it, signing in resignation. "Fine. But only because you're the one who asked," she smiled shyly—tentatively—finding backing in his relaxed stance. "Are you back-back?" Her dark eyes were sharp and fully fixated on every detail.

"No," he did not lie to her. He felt something falter in him as the dropping of her shoulders. The light seemed to be taken out of her eyes.

"Is Uncle being stubborn?" She demanded, recovering quickly. "Just say the word. I'll throw the book at him. Which I can do now because I'm a lawyer, you see. "

"You pass the exam?" He asked, his voice filling with pride. His eyes gained new perspective as they flittered over her face. "You passed the exam!"

"I passed!" She exclaimed in excitement. "I'm starting up at city hall—" Reina's face fell at Minato's eyes settling on something behind her. She huffed a second before an arm pulled her roughly, heavy. "Rihito," she whined, "what is wrong with you?"

He flashed her a smile, his nose ring crinkling. "Hello to you too, baby sister." He mussed her hair, pushing her headband almost down to the back of her skull.

"Hey!" She batted his hand away blindly, her bangs covering her eyes. "Quit it!"

"Talking Minato's ear off again?" Rihito asked her, smile teasing and eyes mischievous in a way that only siblings managed to pull off. A look that claimed to know all her secrets. She pulled her headband from the back of her scalp—it was hanging on by sheer stubbornness. "The man got shot, 'Ina, have some mercy on his soul will you?"

"Rihito!" She shoved him away from her, mortified. She finished straightening her hair with agitated tugs. "We were having a conversation! Right, Mina?" She looked to the blond for support. "Tell him!" She added with incredulity at his silence.

"I'm not getting between this," he said with a sigh, leaning back against the railing.

Reina scoffed, offended. "I'm taking my soup back then!" She moved to snatch the bag from his limp grip. Minato did not pose resistance. "I'm not a kid anymore," she stomped her foot—a habit that undermined her statement, Rihito brought it out of her—"I'm twenty-seven, I will have you know!" She tossed her hair over her shoulder. Her face was red and her dark eyes set straight on Minato.

"Practically a hag," Rihito instigated even more with his antagonization. "Aged out of all the good marriage prospects. Your requested dowry will make us go bankrupt. I'm stuck forever with you," he murmured solemnly, shaking his head forlorn.

"Why you," Reina's rage crested but just as quickly, her face completely relaxed out of deeply set enraged lines, she grinned and that had her brother narrowing his eyes. "I just remembered there was something I needed to take care of." She turned to Minato, she tilted her head to the side. "Don't be a stranger you hear, alright?"

"I won't," he smiled back earnestly. "Thanks for the thought and congratulations."

"Thanks. If you ever find yourself in trouble, call me! Even without the license, I'm more useful than some people," she sang, glaring at her brother before she stalked off—holding the bag to her chest in a vice grip.

"She's going to do something demonic," Rihito rubbed the back of his neck. "I just know it."

"You earned it," Minato moved the garment bags from hand to hand, flexing his fingers. The pins and needles numbing. He winched at the memory of the last thing Reina did to get back at him. Rihito was leaving magenta glitter dust everywhere— Reina put it in all his products (skincare, detergent, shampoo, conditioner, shaving cream, Minato still had no idea how she managed that), and Rihito being the penny pincher he was, utilized them all until they were gone, just like his sister accounted for.

"It's not natural for adult siblings to be living together," Rihito griped. His dark eyes moved up and down. "Since you're not dead I assume Uncle didn't kill you? Did you all hug and make up?"

"Not yet," Minato said with a wry smile adorned on his lips. "There's still time." He provided no further clarification as to which question he answered.

Rihito scoffed, shaking his head. "You didn't tell him. Having second thoughts or just hedging your bets?"

"Neither," Minato answered calmly. "I'm just trying not to get too ahead of myself," he added at the disbelief Rihito directed at him.

"Right," Rihito kissed his teeth. "Reina's knitting you a sweater for your birthday. It's horrible and lumpy and looks like a dead animal carcass, she's working really hard on it. She might even go cross-eyed staying up so late to get it done in time. You better not break her heart too bad, Bro. Otherwise, I'm going to have to kick your ass," he threatened with a nonchalance that was on par with Shika—his mother's sister's son. "With all due respect, Lieutenant."

Minato chuckled. "I'll keep that in mind." He lifted his right foot then the other. "I need something."

"You only talk to me when you need something," Rihito sighed, long-suffering. He grumbled something suspiciously close to "troublesome" under his breath. The nostalgia hit Minato square in the chest, a wave of sadness overcame him next. "Tell me." He walked close and spoke low. They both ignored the dipping of heads, a sign of respect.

"When did these post-meal walks start?" Minato made conversation. He watched his breath out in front of him. It was cold by the time he walked through it again.

"When I turned fifty," Jiraiya grumbled as he patted a large hand to his slightly extended belly. It was hard at work digesting another hand-prepared meal. "You'll see. It's not too off for you."

"Only if I'm lucky." Or unlucky depending on how things turned out. What he longed for could ultimately turn out to be his punishment. The clouds covered anything that could be remotely interesting up in the sky. His hands were being warmed against his thighs in his pockets.

"Hard to believe it's been twenty-eight years," Jiraiya shook his head. "I still get PTSD dreams of the life."

Their boots crunched in the wet gravel underfoot. "How do you deal with it?" He found himself asking even if he was only half listening.

"I roll over and see the hag there or hear her snore, that reminds me we got out. We made it," the taller man sighed. His white hair flowed in the cold, nippy air. He rubbed his hands together, thinking how his wife had been right. He should have listened and worn gloves. They will be unbearably stiff tomorrow. "You'll get there. It's been done before. Just stay the course."

Steady and unwavering.

He was trying but the course was testing him in more ways than he had been prepared for. When it was just a thought and a prospect it was so simple. Even when he had spent months thinking of all the various scenarios and hardships he might encounter, it was all theoretical. Practice and reality were entirely different beasts.

In plans tightly wound,

Pulled threads of fate unravel—

Chaos sings its swan song.

"You went to Shikaku," Jiraiya's deep baritone rumbled in the air, shaking up just about anything in range—what was left behind.

"Sitting idle was no longer an option." Minato sighed heavily, trying to displace it from his body and set it into the air to unburden himself.

The weight of Jiraiya's gaze became more pronounced in the quiet moments of rumination. "It was strange, out of character to see you so passive, even with you being clipped."

He saw a moth fluttering at the top of the street lamp, drawn to the yellow light, struggling against the cold and the inevitable. "I got comfortable with the picture," Minato closed his eyes. Even as he spoke, he could picture it. He could feel the warmth. He could hear her laugh. The memories were fresh, sharp, and crisp. They tormented him in a completely different clarity than their predecessors. "We were in our own little bubble. I really liked that bubble. And I wanted to stay in it as long as possible." Because a part of him knew that once they ventured into reality—the real world—their warm little bubble would not last very long. Because in the back of his mind, he knew, he knew in the marrow of his bones, that maybe once there was no reason for her to keep him around—once she was safe once more—she would not want to. And that fear of that potential reality is what kept him—held him—back. Fear. He let fear be debilitating. He had been petrified in it. And it left him with nothing: no heartbeat, no hope, no her. Just nothing.

Solitude.

Jiraiya sighed deeply and slowly, the surprise of Minato's candor was tucked away under the shag of his white bangs. "It's understandable, Kid," he clapped Minato on the shoulder, indiscriminately. "No one can blame you for needing comfort and companionship. Sages know you deserve it." No one but Minato could blame him and Jiraiya knew that Minato did. He reached a hand into the inner pockets of his maroon haori. There was a flash of silver and the twisting of a cap that took longer than it should have given the cold and the numbed state of his fingers. Jiraiya took a long swing, using the back of his hand to catch the excess before it dripped off his chin. He held out the flask. Minato regarded it for a moment before taking it to mimic the gesture. The alcohol burned his throat but he contained the discomfort completely internally.

In shadows I sought,

Acceptance like a soft breeze,

You hold my heart's key.

Through valleys of doubt,

A soul calls through the still night,

Home found in your light.

With every heartbeat,

Whispers weave our destinies—

Love's embrace at last.

All he had were words and sentiments that he identified and even then they were not his own. They belonged to someone else. They were not his. Nothing was his. All he wanted was to be someone's—to be something to someone. Someone with soft pink hair and sparkling green eyes.

But life was not about getting what you wanted. Not always.

Sakura nuzzled her face into the pillow made of silky, soft fur. Cheddar was flat on his back higher than high chasing after rats in the clouds, his front paws made biscuits, and his normally amber eyes were nearly black from the dilation ratio.

"Found your weakness," Sakura cooed in a high-pitched baby voice. She traced a delicate finger pad along the contours of his face. "You're so pretty," she grinned triumphantly at getting the cat to be so calm around her. And in her mind, it absolutely counted. She gamed the system. She earned this cuddle. "When you're not trying to grate my skin, you monster," she whispered, placing a soft kiss on the top of his head. He blinked slowly. "You're an awful judge of character," she could not help but add with more than a little hint of bruised ego. "That's the last time I rely on you for the screening process. I should have gotten Mom a dog."

Sakura's head was propped up by her curled fist. She turned to watch the judge show that was on. The case playing right now was about a landlord keeping a security deposit and he was being sued. Her stomach twisted.

I probably have ants and roaches now.

She really should have finished cleaning up.

My poor plants. Death awaits me.

Sakura ran her fingers through the soft gray with random sporadic tufts of white fur on Cheddar's belly as she read the closed captions as the landlord justified why he kept the deposit.

Man, I really lucked out with Mr. Teuchi. He's a sweetheart.

The man had not raised rent on her once in all the years she had been there. It was the same for all his tenants. Her building had very little turnover.

"Sakura," Mebuki was standing in front of the TV with a hand on her hip.

"Yeah?" Green eyes trekked up to Mebuki's face. She did not look happy. Sakura racked her brain trying to remember what she could have done this time. She had made sure there were no hair clumps or toothpaste globs in the sink. She had picked up her socks and clothes from the floor. She washed the dishes she used.

I've been good!

Mebuki shook something violently. Cheddar stiffened under her. "What is that?" Sakura asked, gesturing to the small gray duffle bag-looking thing. She noticed the black mesh parts.

Shit.

She put two and two together. Cheddar's tail was twitching. "That's today?" Sakura whined. She had made the appointment over a month ago—a lifetime ago. Sakura hissed in pain. "Hey!" She tried to grab the cat that scurried away. His high had left him quickly at the shake of the carrier. Sakura looked at her mother pitifully, holding her slashed hand. Mebuki's face held no pity.

"Make sure you get an ultrasound of his stomach and lungs. I don't like how he's breathing," Mebuki sighed warily. "I hope it's not lung cancer," she put forth into the universe with ample worry.

"You saw him Killer B out of here just now, didn't you?" Sakura asked her mother in a dry tone that was accompanied by a well-timed eye roll. "His lungs are fine. I'm a doctor, remember?" She sat up, dusting the fur from her clothes in a futile exercise.

"You're not a vet," Mebuki shot back defensively. "Now go get him before you're late. I want the new vet to like him."

It's not the vet or the cat I'm worried about.

With a sigh, Sakura fully rose to her feet. "Here Cheddar-Cheddar," she called out to him in a baby voice. Nonthreatening. "Here kitty-kitty," she walked closer to the ground.

"He's smarter than that," Mebuki huffed, offended. "You need to use treats to lure him inside the carrier."

And she wonders why he's breathing funny.

Sakura slung the carrier across her body, leaving both hands free. She tied her hair up in a high ponytail. Mebuki watched her daughter leave the room. Her screams and Cheddar's yowls could be heard from three houses down. It was a toss-up that was more feral.

xXx

"You're amazing," Sakura said with wide eyes and an even wider mouth. "How do you do that?" She gestured with her bandage-covered hands as the brown-haired vet examined Cheddar while he just sat there, taking it. In quiet acceptance of his fate. He looked absolutely miserable but he always kind of looked like that any time he was not actively eating.

Dr. Inuzuka laughed. She shook her head in amusement. She lifted up the scruff of Cheddar's neck. It came up like a rug. There was so much of it. "It's what his mom would do if he was being bad. It doesn't hurt them and it gets them to cooperate. Talking in a high-pitched voice helps too."

Sakura scratched at her cheek. The cut underneath the bandage stung. "He must not like the sound of my voice."

Cheddar let out a pitiful meow.

"See," Sakura joked.

Hana chuckled good-naturedly. "His lungs are fine, but we'll do the ultrasound just to be thorough," she lowered the stethoscope around her neck. "He seems to be in good health. He could afford to lose a couple of pounds. He carries it well but he would be happier for it," she made a face. "Eventually."

"Can you please add bloodwork? My mom needs to see the numbers. She's obsessive," Sakura rubbed her elbow. "Cheddar is her baby."

"Sure," Hana made some notes on the clipboard. Cheddar wore the look of shellshock. "He has a tooth that we'll keep an eye on. We might have to remove it in a year or two. Just letting you know in case he stops eating suddenly or has trouble eating."

Sakura nodded her head. She noted the comment in the notepad app on her phone. "I kind of gave him catnip," Sakura added sheepishly, suddenly remembering. "He was pretty stoned before we got here."

"I noticed," Hana wrote more notes in the file. "We'll save the bloodwork for next time. We can still do a stool sample."

Sakura looked at Cheddar apologetically. "We better."

The cat stared at her with big eyes and meowed softly, betrayed.

xXx

Minato approached the black car reverse parked under the large redwood tree. It was the spot among a couple of cars toward the edge of the lot. It had sight lines to the front door. He tapped on the driver-side window. It rolled down halfway.

"Any luck?" The man with dark wavy hair that grazed his chin and equally dark eyes behind his aviator sunglasses asked.

Minato shook his head at the question. "He's not here." He really thought he would be, that he would come to his sister if he was in trouble.

"And they just told you that?" Rihito asked with an eye roll. The thin silver ring on his left nostril crinkled as he scrunched his nose at the chill that was coming inside the car. He gestured to the passenger seat with his head. Minato shook his once.

"Hana was the one to tell me. She wouldn't lie to me," he stated, very matter-of-fact.

"Is there anyone you haven't charmed? Or blackmailed?" Rihito asked in a deadpan.

"It's not like that," Minato said with a sigh. His hand went to the cigarette behind his ear. He moved it between his fingers. "Shika and Hana dated for a bit. He liked her drive and intelligence."

She was the only one who wasn't a Nara that could come close to beating him at Shogi…even if she cheated every now and then.

As if he did not have a hand in helping catch his best friend off guard with underhanded tactics. Hana distracting Shika with a kiss—a first for both of them—while Minato moved the pieces was one such instance. Poor Shika had been so discombobulated he did not remember until over an hour later that his board was all wrong but by then he had already lost the bet and paid for not only his and Hana's meal but Minato's too.

"Let me guess, it became troublesome after the rose-tinted glasses came off," Rihito said with a knowing look.

Minato nodded his head, content to let the younger man buy that narrative that was pushed by none other than Shika himself. Minato knew better. It was getting too serious and he did not want to hold her back. She wanted to go to veterinary school in Hachi which was a seven-hour flight away. Shikamaru's heart broke that day Hana got on that plane.

"Hana's always liked me." And that remained true when he took her little brother in. Her little brother, who was picking fights left and right with anyone in their clan, including their mother. Hana was genuinely scared that Tsume would kill Kiba to set an example, just like she had done to her partner and the father of her two children when Kiba was just six months old—all because the man dared to question her publicly in a clan meeting. Hana had talked Tsume down into just disowning Kiba and kicking him out of the clan at sixteen. She had just finished veterinary school and was planning on coming back home. It was when she begged Minato to take him in, she learned that Shika was dead. Minato believed the devastation she had on her face at the news was genuine. She still loved Shika too. To this day even.

"I was just leaving when I saw Sakura's car pull in. What are you doing here?" Minato asked Shikmaru's favorite cousin.

"Hora asked me to fill in at the last minute. He said something came up," Rihito pressed his lips together in displeasure.

"What?" Minato's eyes narrowed marginally—barely discernible.

"Hora's been shifty, Bro," Rihito looked conflicted to be sharing this. "He's late. He's making excuses. He's on the phone a lot more. He's cagey."

Minato closed his eyes. "Do you think he's using again?" He asked in a level voice, awaiting the answer with his breath held.

"No," Rihito was quick to shake his head. "I'm not saying all that."

"What are you saying?" Minato asked him pointedly. His cobalt eyes bore into Rihito's dark irises.

"I'm," Rihito seemed to falter in his confidence. "I'm saying he's being weird. And something isn't sitting right with me."

"He's always been weird," Minato tucked the cigarette behind his ear. "If he asks you to switch again, you let me know." He turned around, his gaze was at the door. "How is she?"

"Good, I think," Rihito said with a shrug. "I never met her. This is the first time I've seen her out of the house. She had cuts and bandages on her face and hands. I assume that's not concerning."

Cheddar.

"No," Minato tugged at his blond hair. "Don't tell Hora you saw me or that we talked."

"With pleasure," Rihito nodded his head curtly. "What are you going to do?"

"Nothing." For now. And maybe ever as long as Sakura's coverage did not lapse.

"Hora's probably already told you but we can't do daily car sweeps. She parks in the garage so it should be fine," Rihito peered over the dark lens of his gold-trim glasses.

"It's fine," Minato's light tone did not speak to the levels of his paranoias the same way his instructions did. He never turned on a car without checking it first.

"Don't look now, Bro," Rihito moved his seat back, becoming harder to spot.

Minato, with his arms over the roof of the car, turned his head toward the blue door of the clinic. He saw it open. Pink filled his sight. Her hair was in a high ponytail. Her green eyes were vibrant. There was a bandage that did not match her skin across her cheek on the left side. He could make more of them on the backs of her hands. He imagined there were even more under the soft layer of her light green sweater. Her pants were white and her ankle boots were brown. His heart sped up involuntarily at the first flash of pink. Seeing her in the flesh was a painfully efficient reminder that his memories could never do her justice. They could not compete with the real thing. The real her.

She was smiling, saying something into the carrier she held in her hands. She stopped walking. She must have sensed his eyes because he found himself locked in her emerald gaze hot and scalding without warning. It felt like an eternity but it was really an instance. Her chin jutted out in defiance. With strides longer than he assumed she was capable of; she closed the distance. Much too fast for him to really drink her in.

His arms fell at his side. If he outstretched them and she did the same, they would be touching, the thought settled in his mind.

Hi. How are you?

"Stay the hell away from me and my mom," she ground out in anger—in fury. Her eyes were narrowed slits. "Both of you," her eyes darted to Rihito—just as angry, just as livid. Collateral damage in her ongoing conflict with the blond. "All of you," she spat. She turned her heel and her feet carried her away. She shushed the meowing cat loudly, calling him a traitor not as quiet as she probably thought she was.

"Boss," Rihito's voice at low volume drew his attention. The Nara gazed at him apologetically. Minato stepped back and to the right, allowing Rihito more room to operate. The black SUV hummed to life, following the red car out of the parking lot.

Minato lost track of time—of just how long he stood there in that spot waiting for the impossible: for her to come back.

Even if it's just to yell.

The wind changed direction, sending a sheet of rain to land directly on the back of his neck and over his shoulders. It was frigid. Cold. A shock to his senses but his mind stubbornly remained elsewhere. The droplets plinked off the tin roof that was making its discomfort known. Unresponsive eyes read the name on the marker to the right of the center of the small rock garden. It never changed but that did not stop his eyes from tracing the etched-in letters over and over again.

Ghosts of memories,

Echo where shadows linger—

One-sided exchanges.

Minato watched it burn off more and more of the white column. A small stream of smoke—darker than his breath before him—was held between his stationary fingers.

It's been a while.

That too could be chalked up to his choices and the consequences that came from therein. With the hand that was holding the burning cigarette between his index and middle fingers, the outside of Minato's thumb smoothed down a blond brow, wearily.

I'm a little lost.

Tsunade would scold him for trying to catch a cold and make things harder for him and that was after Jiraiya gave him an earful for smelling like an ashtray. The smell of smoke was a trigger for an addict like his wife. Despite her absence from the card tables, gambling very much had a hold over her still. All these decades later and having crawled out from underneath her debt. Vices. The hold—the power—they held was terrifying to him. The thought of losing control, losing who he was—there was no worse fate. He supposed that was a lie too. Because he knew of a worse fate, he lived a worse fate. Having loved ones die, having them leave him behind. That was much crueler. Or maybe it was one and the same. There was no control of it either time.

Figured that maybe coming back to someplace familiar would help.

The cigarette burned down to its yellow butt. Minato tossed it on the damp concrete, grounding it with his heel for good measure. His hand was already moving to the box with a rose on the front. He pulled out another. His fingers moved through motions he never thought he would be familiar with. How young Minato would turn his nose up at what had become of him.

He got to judge. Because he does not know what's in store for him. Young Minato still clung to his dreams. He chased after them and that too at full speed. Ignorance was like a superpower or a drug. Ignorance had the ability to make anyone fearless.

It's not really working. I've never been the smart one between the two of us.

He inhaled deeply just as the two tips met: flame and cigarette. The smoke caressed his face with the tenderness that promised stability. Reliable. The way the tension seemed to ease from his frame and he poisoned his lungs all the while his lips stayed free of the corruption of its taste. He watched the rain; the sky gray, and the puddles expanding. The water on the back of his neck became so heavy his chin tilted toward his sternum.

"What would you do, Shika?" He asked the remnants of the smoke trail, a poor stand-in for his best friend, giving himself a break from the name on the marker.

Shikamaru Nara

"Did he have to look so good?" Sakura asked in a huff, still as worked up as the moment she had seen him more than twenty-four hours ago. "Is it too much to ask that he has a bad hair day or a pimple or something?" She hugged her pillow to her chest. His face had less fat than she remembered. It was sharper and more defined. He filled out his suit nicely. Really nicely. "What is wrong with you? He's stalking you and you're hung up on his face?"

And the rest of him. God damn.

What was perhaps the worst of all, he was completely unbothered. Unaffected by what had transpired. He was fine. He was great. He was…Minato. Impassive. Unreliable. Unshakable. Unmoveable. Infuriating. The whole thing was completely frustrating, not to mention humiliating.

"I should have followed through. I should have called the police. No Uchihas live out here. Now he knows that I'm a pushover. A liar." Sakura played with a hair just mindfully enough not to pull it by the root. Having bald spots would help no one—least of all her. "What do you think?" She asked the cat splayed out on the top of the sheet. He was just out of reach, taunting her with what she could not have. Cheddar paused, grooming himself to stare at her, blinking slowly. Condescending."Yeah," Sakura mumbled in complete agreement, lowering her chin against the plum pillow. "I'm pathetic."

Cheddar stretched out his body. His long tail tapped against her knee, curling against her shin. She played with the drawstrings of her orange hoodie. She blew a raspberry.

"Maybe I should dye my hair. Go blonde?"

Bangs. I should get bangs. They looked cute…when I was five. My face hasn't changed that drastically. I mean stuff is more or less in the same place…I could pull it off.

Distractions. She needed them. As many as she could get her hands on. Having a high-maintenance haircut certainly would provide that.

"A bob!" She double-fisted her hair, moving them until they were just below her ears. "I could make it work." Green met with amber. "What say you?" She asked in her best impersonation of Hagrid.

Her door opened with a bang—hitting the wall hard enough to leave a hole. Cheddar shot straight up and came straight down, scampering away between a very irate Mebuki's legs. Screaming the whole way to let his state be known to the household.

"What the heck, Mom?" Sakura asked louder than she should have, with an arm held out to the side—hair still in one hand. "Are you sabotaging things for Cheddar and me on purpose?" Her tone was suspicious and her eyes narrowed. "Mom?" She asked with hesitation at Mebuki's lack of engagement beyond the glaring.

"I have been patient with you, Sakura," Mebuki's arms were crossed over her burgundy shawl. "I have been understanding. I have been supportive. I have been everything I can possibly be but enough is enough. I am putting my foot down," she declared with authority.

What does that even mean?

Sakura bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling or doing something equally stupid, like reminding her mother she was not a teenager. She stared up at her mother with her hands folded over her lap—the picture of demure. Completely disingenuous.

Mebuki did not believe her for one second. "If you don't tell me what is going on with you, I will call Minato."

You wouldn't.

The color drained from Sakura's face.

She would. She totally would.

"Well?" Mebuki asked impatiently with her phone in her hand in a very bonafide threat.

Sakura got up to her feet shakily. She walked towards Mebuki but did not stop. Her mother turned around with a frown.

"Sakura?" She asked loudly.

"I'm getting booze!" Sakura shouted back.

Mebuki did not know what to feel. So instead, she followed after her daughter but not before turning off the light in her room and closing the door softly.

xXx

She giggled, nibbling on a drumstick. Her fingers were damp with grease and her lips coated with salt. "This is fun. Why don't we drink together more often?" She asked a little breathlessly with shiny, glazed-over eyes and pink-pink cheeks.

"Put your feet on the floor. You were not raised in a barn," Mebuki scolded Sakura. "And fix your sweater. It's falling off your shoulders."

Sakura pouted as she pulled the white cable knit sweater to cover her shoulders. She had spilled vodka on her hoodie so she had to change—because Mebuki would not stop commenting how Sakura smelled like a distillery. "That's why," the pinkette murmured to herself. Drinking made Mebuki more Mebuki-like in every facet.

"So Minato is Akatsuki?" Mebuki gaped at her like a fish, eyes unfocused.

Sakura winced. She second and third-guessed her decision to be too open with her mother. "Yeah. I found out and I broke up with him and came here," she smiled tightly hoping her mother would remain too preoccupied with the shock to find the holes in her watered-down version. Sakura refilled her glass. Poor Catico was swimming in vodka.

"I'm not drunk enough for this," Mebuki held out her mug. Sakura refilled it carefully. "It's a shame," Mebuki clicked her tongue. "I liked him for you."

"Mom?" Sakura gaped, nearly coating her sleeve in alcohol—again. She pulled her legs back up on the couch and leaned toward her mother. "He's a literal criminal. Is the bar really that low?"

Do you really not think I can do better?

"He's flawed," Mebuki tutted, flicking Sakura's nose. "But who isn't? Not everyone has a fair chance, Sakura. He's a good man. You can't fake that kind of stuff. You know that." She glared at her daughter who snorted so loudly that Cheddar was awoken rudely from his nap. "You didn't give him an out, Sakura. You drove him out."

Sakura made a show of closing her jaw. "Wow." She chewed aggressively on the chicken she tore from the bone. "I don't even know what to say to that," she said with her mouth full. Her head moved back and forth the entirety of the time. She sniffled. "These are spicy."

"It's just black pepper, Sakura," Mebuki rolled her eyes at her daughter's poor excuse for a de-escalation or maybe it was more fair to call it a redirect.

Sakura set the bones down on the paper towel-lined plate along with the rest, adding to the pile. She dabbed her lips with a napkin before wiping her hands.

"I did the right thing," her words were colored with adamance for seeing things how they were. Her mother was clouded by her fondness for who she thought he was.

Good riddance.

"By throwing food at him?" Mebuki's flat brow was not impressed in the slightest. "I taught you better than that!"

"I was angry!" Sakura let out a groan, sensing a pending conversation on both wasting food and her inability to control her outbursts. "I just found out he had been lying! About everything!" Sakura felt two feet tall under the weight and scrutiny of her mother's less-than-empathetic gaze. "He was just standing there. What was I supposed to do?" She added meekly in full realization that it did not paint her in any better light.

He just stands there…even in the beginning.

"Sakura," Mebuki closed her eyes and pressed a sigh. "It's not about being right or wrong." There were hints of patience in her stance that was beginning to soften ever so slightly.

Then what is it about?

"Being happy," Mebuki read the question across Sakura's face. "Are you happy?" She asked.

"Yes," Sakura countered, blinking back stubbornly with next to zero shame about lying to her mother's face.

I'm ecstatic, can't you tell?

Mebuki rolled her eyes. "Well, clearly you're not ready to talk about this like an adult so maybe I should be treating you like a child then. Is that what you want, Sakura? Hm?"

"We've," Sakura itched the side of her neck. Her skin felt like it was crawling. It was so hot all of a sudden. "We've never talked like this before."

Mebuki clicked her tongue. "I suppose there is a bit of a learning curve isn't there?" She gazed over the edge of her mug at the spot over Sakura's shoulder. "It's not like I could talk to my mother about Kizashi." Mebuki's voice was as distant as the memories she was chasing.

Can we not go there, please? I'm extremely uncomfortable enough as is.

"Sakura," her mother called her attention with a tentative utterance of her name. Searching. "You can't look me in the eye and tell me you're not scared about going home."

I did not run away. I just needed to get away….

A distinction without a difference that she was clinging to so desperately. She was not a coward. Not in this. Sakura turned her head. Her jaw was set in defiance. Her silence and lack of engagement only egged her mother on more.

"You weren't fair to him. You didn't hear him out!" Mebuki rubbed her temples, sighing deeply. Sakura did not invest too much time trying to determine if it was the vodka's doing or hers.

I accused him of many things.

Things she did not even know if she believed or not because the longer she thought about it—ruminating—the more insane it became. Could they really have orchestrated a shootout so perfectly just for the off chance that she—the biggest wildcard out there—would go down the steps and not only find him but help him? Was she really that delusional? Or did she think herself that amazing that someone would go to such lengths for her? Was her ego really that massive? Was her sense of self-importance that inflated where she entertained this for anything more than it was: an intrusive thought?

I didn't treat him like a human being.

Either time of the last two that she saw him. And that was perhaps her biggest regret. Sakura's lips pulled into a pout and her shoulders slumped.

"Figures you would take his side."

"There are no sides, Sakura," her mother held onto her patience by a hair. Once Sakura mentally got past feeling sorry for herself, she would see. Mebuki believed that to be true.

"He lied to me," she grumbled half-heartedly. Her bruised ego spoke for her.

"So?" Mebuki asked, tone flippant and her green eyes without softness.

So? So? So?!

"So?" Sakura repeated, lost in complete dumbfoundedness.

"You lied to me, Sakura. And you'd probably do it again and again and again before I die. Does that mean I love you less?" Mebuki asked her pointedly in a no-nonsense tone that clipped.

Geez Mom, way to bring down the mood with the big 'd-word'...wait? What did she say?

"No," Sakura's ears burned. "Love? Who said anything," she shook her head, thoughts muddled and tongue thick with clumsiness. She grabbed the bottle. It was more than half-empty. "Damn, we really like peppermint." They drank like fish. She let the clear glass bottle with red accents go. The clock on the oven said it had been more than two hours since they started drinking and talking. Her green eyes narrowed on her mother's face. "Mom, you're drunk," she said with seriousness—tone stern with authority.

Time for you to go night-night.

"I am not," Mebuki batted away the hand that was reaching for her cup. Sakura cradled it to her chest with hurt feelings. "Sakura Haruno you may be thirty-one and a doctor but you are not too old for me to ground."

Are you out of your mind?

"Mom!"

"Hush," Mebuki held out her hand, stopping Sakura's uncoordinated attempts to snatch the mug. She knocked it back, baring her teeth. "He was good for you. He was good to you. And you pushed him away." The allegation hung heavily in the air, coating their lungs with each and every breath.

Why does any of this come as a surprise to you?

"You never even saw us together," Sakura countered with the stubbornness of a donkey—an ass because the longer this went on, the more she felt like one. Together, Minato and she were never even together, not in any sense that mattered.

"I didn't need to," Mebuki matched her tone and wore a scowl of her own. "Your influence was on the other! The glow, the color, the light, the love."

Oh my God, who even are you right now?

Mebuki extended out her arm as if straining for something just out of reach. She sighed. "He lit up when he talked about you or when I did. He soaked up every story, listened so intently, and asked questions."

He was pretending. He was a really good pretender. Or he was just gathering more information to use to manipulate the situation…what I felt for him. Me.

Weight of denial,

Lighter load than heavy truths—

Cling to dark, spurn light.

"I told him about Sakuto," she moved a dangling strand of hair from her face to behind her ear absentmindedly. She watched Catico swim. "I talked to him about Sakuto. Told him stories I haven't thought about in so long," she pulled her knees closer to her chest, making herself smaller still. It took her years to tell Ino anything—anything at all. It had been a gradual build with Ino. Slow and steady. Sustainable. "I don't know why I did that," Sakura cleared her throat to no avail. The scratchiness in the back of it was persistent.

It just felt like he understood.

Without her having to explain everything—or even anything. He knew the pain of a loss of that nature—of that relationship. He just understood.

He didn't even need to say anything.

"I threw food at him," she clamped down on her bottom lip just in time before her voice caught. Over and over. Every night in her nightmares. She threw food at him. Repeating it in an endless loop. Her personal hell of her own making. Every time, she had to take in his slack face while he just stood there in the wake of her blatant disrespect for him as a man, as a person.

So hurt. He looked so hurt. So…so vulnerable.

So human. If he was even half the things that she was trying to make him out to be…she would not have done that out of credible fear of retaliation. Actions had consequences. Steep ones.

"Sakura, you were hurt. You're still learning these things. This new side of yourself," the voice of her mother consoled.

Pink lashes squeezed closed. The drop escaped all the same. The curtain fell much too slowly. A rough but warm hand caught it, lifting it away from marring her cheek even further.

"Bug," Mebuki sighed, slow and deep, intentional. The breath fanning Sakura's face carried hints of burn. "I am your mother. I know these things," Mebuki eyed her daughter sadly. She traced the side of Sakura's face with a tender hand. The gesture would have meant so much more had Mebuki not been slightly slurring her words. "Just like I know you're lying to me even now."

Sakura tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, daring not to even contain a thought in her head because Mebuki would extract it. "It's complicated," she said in a broken voice. "It doesn't matter. It's over." It was over before it could begin. Before they ever stood a chance and she had nothing to show for it—nothing that persisted beyond this intangible loss. How could you show the lack of something? Nothing. She had nothing.

Hopes wilt in shadows,

Poisonous lies poured in roots—

Love's seed stays dormant.

"Just because it ended doesn't mean it didn't matter," Mebuki covered Sakura's hand on her knee with her own. She squeezed. "Just because it ended doesn't mean it failed. Just because it broke, it doesn't mean it can't be fixed. One day. Believe it, Bug. Hold onto it."

So I can be just like you? Always waiting?

Tears rained down Sakura's cheeks. A sudden and unexpected onslaught. "Dad left you, Mom. Dad left me." She breathed loud and wet. "He's not coming back." Shards of tragedy like glass in her throat made everything all the more difficult.

Gifts returned to void

ring and name cast aside—

Yet you kept my heart.

"You gave him everything," there was no other way to describe it. "You gave up everything for him." Her hopes and her dreams. Mebuki gave up herself for Kizashi; to support him.

He gave up on us.

"He's happy without us."

He can thrive without us.

"I know Sakura," her mother said with more composure than Sakura thought possible. She did not deny it. She did not wilt. She sat in the truth with poise.

"If…if you know, then why do you forgive him?" Sakura asked with a trembling lip that danced to her melancholy.

How can you forgive him? How?

"Because I am so grateful to him," Mebuki held her face even tighter; voice and eyes clear. "I never would have gotten to meet Sakuto if it was not for him." And before Sakura's face could drop and the light could leave her eyes like it always did, Mebuki kissed her wet cheeks; one after the other. Worn away hands held on tight. "And I wouldn't have you, Lovebug, the two true loves of my life."

"Mom?" Sakura unsuccessfully choked back a sob; eyes searching and searching and searching. The picture did not change. The conviction did not waver.

"Just because it ended the wait it did—we went through what we did—does not change how good he was. He was a good father to Sakuto and to you. He was my husband. He was your father." Mebuki blinked back tears of her own, the salt only adding more to combat in the form of irritation. "I don't regret that decision. Not one bit. Maybe one day, you won't either." How she hoped that for her daughter. Almost more than anything.

"I-I-I," she stumbled. She was unable to catch her fall. Sinking deeper and deeper into the depths. Mebuki held onto her in an undeniable reminder that she was there.

I'm not as strong as you, Mom. I don't think I can forgive him.

"Nothing is forever, Sakura." Her mother paused either to let the sentiment sink in or to compose herself. "And that's okay."

How? How can it be?

"Lean on me, Sakura," Mebuki breathed shakily, willing her voice to not catch—to not waver. "I know I leaned on you too hard, too much for much too long, and there's nothing I can do about it because it already happened. But Sakura, lean on me. I can handle it." She squeezed Sakura's face. "I promise you, I can handle it," she whispered clear as a bell; resonating with the vulnerability inside of her.

Sakura's face hardened right before the words came bursting out of her. She could not stop herself. The vodka that tasted like candy canes and the greasy chicken had softened her. She was weak to the comfort Mebuki offered. So small. So vulnerable. So tired.

"I made a mistake, Mom," she sobbed into Mebuki's shoulder. Her mother held her close, keeping her up. "I'm such an idiot."

"You're not, Sakura," Mebuki tutted, patting her on the back. "You're my daughter. You're strong. You're going to be fine."

Sakura shook her head. She opened her mouth to argue but the words that came tumbling out had a different agenda. One that was unbeknownst to even her. And thus she began to tell her mother everything. Everything. Everything was strung together with threads of different thicknesses and strength—made weak by the breaking of her voice and the shattered pants of her heavy breaths.

Everything.

Because no one protected her better than her mother did. Not then and not now. Mebuki listened without interruption, holding her daughter to her. Her eyes filled with fear that Sakura could not see from her vantage, held close to her heart. It was when she had tucked Sakura with two blankets on the couch that Mebuki walked into the kitchen. Not a single light was on in the home. She pulled her phone from her pocket and hit the second to last number she had called—more than several days ago. The line trilled and was picked up on the third ring. He never let it get past the second usually.

"Hello?" His voice was heavy with sleep which explained the delay. "Ms. Haruno?" He cleared his throat. She could hear rustling in the background. Soft. "Is everything okay?" He was more awake now. Alert.

Mebuki exhaled a long breath. "I need you to be honest with me. No formalities. No bullshit. No stories. No lies."

"Okay," he said after seconds of silence.

"Is my daughter safe?" Mebuki asked him with her heart in her throat and hand pressed to her navel. Her stomach was sinking still as she waited, suspended in the terror of ambiguity. "Is Sakura safe?"

"Yes," he answered without hesitation.

"I have to protect her. I need to protect her." What kind of mother was she that her daughter went through all of this alone—with a perfect stranger—than coming to her? Just how badly had she failed her only living, breathing child? "Can you help me protect her?" Mebuki begged, blinking back the tears cultivated from her own failures. "Can you help me keep my baby safe?"

"Yes."

"Can you guarantee to keep my Sakura safe, no matter what? No matter what." Mebuki pressed her hand to her shaking mouth just in time before a whimper could leave her. "Minato," she swallowed air loudly. "Can you promise me that?"

"On my life, Ms. Haruno, I promise you that Sakura will be safe," his voice was like steel. Strong and unyielding. It brought her comfort. His calm did.

She pressed her hand back to her stomach. She survived one child dying. She could not do it again. It would have been better to never have met them if she was fated to bury them.

"She's staying with me." Mebuki wiped her tears and cleared her throat. Her voice was a hoarse whisper.

There was a pregnant pause. "I know."

The blonde-haired woman closed her eyes. Everything—her instincts—were screaming at her. Betraying her. Just like betrayed her daughter who was struggling just to stay afloat. But what else could she do? It was her other instinct, the first thought that popped into her head when Sakura told her the truth. Minato. She needed to talk to Minato. And that was much before Sakura had said with grave seriousness that if Mebuki even thought about telling Kizashi, she would never forgive her.

"Mom," Sakura's face had come together in great pain from the burden of having to deliver heavy, dense words. "I love you," she had said, voice catching and lip trembling. "You're the only one who's been there for me since the beginning, through everything. But if you tell Kizashi, If you tell Dad anything, I will never get over it. I'll never trust you again."

It had taken everything out of Sakura to bring herself to say out loud to her. The tears that had sprung from both of their eyes were uncountable. She could not go to Kizashi. What good would that do? What good would his money do? What good would his distance do? What good would his weakness do? No, Kizashi—her ex-husband—was never an option. Not a viable one in crisis anyway. Sakura did not have to make it clear—explicit. Mebuki knew that deep in her bones. Sakura's and Kizashi's paths had deviated long ago and there was no prospect of them crossing again, much less converging. Mebuki realized that now. Sakura was a daughter without a father in this world. Mebuki had to learn to accept that; it was her burden to carry not Sakura's.

"She told me," Mebuki did not know if what she was doing was right or wrong but she did know this, their chances were better with Minato than they were without. "She doesn't know I'm calling you. She got a new phone. She's worked up. She's confused. She's," Mebuki bit her tongue much too late. "She's struggling Minato," Mebuki breathed the condemnation of herself. The damage was done.

"Ms. Haruno," she heard another pause. Maybe he muted himself to sigh because when he spoke again, there was defeat in his voice. Traces of it. "I think we should both go to bed."

"Okay," she leaned back against the wall. "Okay," she repeated with her head tilted up to the ceiling.

"It's going to be okay, Ms. Haruno."

"Okay." Oh, how she wanted to believe him. She clung to the conviction she held in her. Just like the conviction that had once said she wanted Kizashi Haruno to be the father of her children. She was right to pick him. Her children were great. They were strong. She would not want them any other way other than maybe a little less broken.

"I'll reach out with any updates. Good night."

She nodded her head. She lowered the phone from her ear. Her heart was still shaking from what she had learned about her own daughter going through. She sank to the floor slowly. Her forehead pressed against her knees. She cried silently. Cheddar kept her feet warm.

He pulled the lever at the side of the seat. It lurched forward first but his persistent pressure had it falling backward. At once. He closed his eyes behind his dark glasses and lay completely still. Like a corpse. His chest barely rose or fell.

"I can see you."

He could hear the eye roll in her voice. Sasori peeled open one lid. He had yet to turn his head. He only saw the wheel in front of him.

"I'm not leaving."

With a long-suffering sigh, Sasori pulled the lever in the other way causing both the seat and him to come to an upright position. He turned his head in slow motion. His eyes did not quite come up to meet hers.

"Doc," he gave her a two-finger salute. His nails were a dark purple.

"Open the window," Sakura's muffled voice called out from the otherside of the glass divider. She tapped it to further expedite the request.

"How do I know you won't go psycho on me?" Sasori asked her dryly, shamelessly peering over his glasses at the foil-covered plate in her hands. He smelled it before he saw it. "You have a history."

"I'm not here to throw it at you," Sakura simply stated without shame or embarrassment at the what-should-have-been-ridiculous-sounding assurance. "It's not poisoned," she said with a deadpan expression at his raised red brow. "You have two seconds before I leave." She sniffled her red nose. It was cold. "And take the dessert with me." She sweetened the offer via a threat.

Sasori lifted his eyes from the plate to her face. He unrolled the window slowly with the turns of the crank. The plate transferred into his hands. It was warm.

"Uh, thanks," Sasori blinked down at it. It felt heavy, not unlike the weight of owing someone.

"Don't mention it," Sakura said dismissively. "If you get cold, I can bring blankets. And if you're bored, my mom has some magazines," Sakura stared at him expectantly.

"I don't even know what that is," Sasori peeled the foil from the plate. The aroma hit his nose. His mouth nearly watered on the spot. "Did your mom make this?" He asked in disbelief. It looked nearly good enough to be on the cover of a magazine he claimed not to know the existence of.

"She did," Sakura's lips pulled into the smallest of smiles for a second. "Don't forget to stretch. Leave the covered plate on the porch swing. The neighborhood had a lot of stray cats and my mom's cat is perfectly content without any siblings. And here," she held out a metal canister. "It's hot apple cider. Non-alcoholic."

"So pointless then," he took it all the same and let it settle on the passenger seat.

"Well," Sakura wrapped her arms around her. "Stay warm." She took a step back.

"You're not going to ask me?" Sasori asked with a furrowed brow.

Sakura shook her head. "No more." She left it at that because she really had nothing more to say. Not to Minato. Not to Sasori on the matter.

"Then why do this?" Sasori gestured to the plate he still held between his hands. "Why go through all this trouble for someone who said things you shouldn't have heard?" His eyes remained on the food.

It's not your fault that you're out here any more than it's mine.

"You're human," Sakura said with a shrug. Dismissive. She sighed. It was a trek back to her house. "Goodnight."

"Doc?" He called out before she had fully turned around, Sakura looked over her shoulder. "I need to pee."

She rolled her eyes. "You're on your own. And stop using Mr. Yoshida's azaleas. They're award-winning and they're also how he copes with his wife talking to everyone but him."

"This place is the pits. Everyone is so damn noisy," he complained to unsympathetic ears.

Sakura smiled. "Welcome to the suburbs." She did not look back once as she rounded the hood of the car to cross the street.

Sasori sighed, he unrolled the small package she had handed him along with the plate—the utensils. He stabbed the fluffy potatoes. There was steam coming off of them. "Shit," he breathed deeply. "That's good." He stuffed his fork quickly and shoved it in his mouth even faster. He watched her make her way back home. She had stopped to talk to some man who was putting out his garbage bins. Sasori narrowed his eyes at her clearly artificial laugh. The middle-aged man looked beside himself. A woman with her brown hair swinging back and forth like a pendulum out of her black hat waved at them as she ran by, all smiles. He nearly shivered.

How anyone could leave the life, the excitement for this place was beyond him. "The Lieutenant is short a few marbles," he sucked the marrow from the slow-cooked ribs. "God damn," he licked the sauce from his fingers—unaffected by the smatterings of those that already embedded themselves into the fibers of the floor. The black security door closed. He turned his full attention to the feast that he had yet to devour. The slice of chocolate cake was urging him to hurry the hell up.

Sakura inhaled deeply and clapped her hands together. "It smells so good," she gushed. "It's been ages since I had your homemade udon." Sakura held out her arms to help her mother move the first of the bowls to the table. "An udon facial," Sakura squealed in delight at the steam coating her face. She set the tray on the coffee table. She moved a green cushion so it was ready for Mebuki who was carefully lowering her tray just as Sakura had. "Your knees will be okay?" Sakura asked, concerned at the hiss of breath that left her mother. "We can eat at the table."

"It's fine, Bug," Mebuki waved her hand dismissively; settling into the cross-legged position with some adjustment. "It's been so long since we've eaten like this." The TV murmured in the background.

"Hm," Sakura held Cheddar back from climbing up on the table. The smell of beef had the cat wake from his nap and he was motivated to wreak havoc. "You have no idea, Mom. Your udon has ruined all others for me. Yuma is scamming people blind." She poked the soft-boiled egg and watched it mix in with the miso broth. Her mouth was watering as she eyed the steam trying to work out if the first bite was worth burning her tongue for and subsequently not being able to taste all subsequent bites or if she should do the responsible and sane thing of waiting a couple more tens of seconds.

"What about the ramen stand you're always going on about? The one your landlord owns," Mebuki pointed out with pressed-together lips. Even in all her sternness, her eyes betrayed her. They were filled with pride.

"Mr. Teuchi!" Sakura's eyes lit up for a combination of reasons. The broth filled her spoon. "We have to go the next time you're in Tani. He's booked months out but he always has room for his tenants," she smiled fondly before blowing the steam. "And as good as his ramen is, it's not the same. Sometimes a girl just wants a thick noodle, you know?" Sakura laughed at her own comment, not phased in the slightest that her mother did not share her humor. She slurped. "So good, Mom!" She gushed. "Better than I remember, even. I might just have to go on a short run to make room for seconds and thirds!" She joked, holding her hair back from her lips as she drank another spoonful.

"Right, his restaurant is in Tani," Mebuki shook her head. "I don't know Sakura. The city is…," her green eyes lowered out of disappointment she felt in herself.

"It's okay, Mom." Sakura reached over to squeeze her hand with a kind smile. "No rush. Ichiraku's isn't going anywhere. His daughter Ayame is going to take up the mantle. She's learning all the tricks and family secrets." Sakura sighed, the air seeming to be sucked right out of her when her own voice filled her ears. The pinkette took her lip between her teeth just short of gnawing on it. "Maybe…we can talk about him again?" Jade-colored eyes rose with hesitation, unsure what awaited her. "Maybe I can talk about him with you?"

Without it tearing either of us apart. Maybe?

So that maybe one day the pain would not split them in half just like the loss of him had done the same to their lives. Before Sakuto and after Sakuto.

"Sakura," Mebuki felt her eyes fill with tears, involuntarily. She did not need any additional context as to who Sakura was talking about. She just knew in her heart. "Bug, we—," Mebuki's brow furrowed. "Sakura?"

Sakura, the woman in question, was staring at the TV as if she had seen a ghost. Mebuki was quick to follow her gaze. The lines around her mouth loosened and all but disappeared as her jaw lowered.

"C-charges dropped?" Mebuki found her voice. She shook Sakura by the arm. "What do they mean charges dropped?" Her voice was panicked. "Sakura!"

The pinkette blinked while her mother shook her almost violently. She put her hand over Mebuki's, the effect was immediate. Mebuki stared at her, scared. Sakura cleared her throat.

"It's okay, Mom," Sakura spoke with conviction that she faked. "It's okay. It just means it's over."

"How?" Mebuki asked, unconceived that it was that easy.

Sakura watched as an earlier recording of a swarm of reporters clamored and shoved their mics under the dark umbrella held over D.A. Sugawara's white head. Not a hair was out of place as his bodyguards pushed a way through the barricade of bodies to the car that waited at the end of the stairs. Her eyes landed on the bold headline.

All Charges Dropped With Prejudice.

"It means that the case against Haruto Nara can't be charged again." It meant an innocent man would not lose years of his life away from his wife and son. It meant that Minato kept his word. For what it was worth.

She's not worth half a mil.

Sasori's flippant and careless statement rang in her ears. Was that the cost of this? To release him. Her stomach twisted into a knot. Painful.

"Sakura?" Mebuki's voice was small and meek. "Bug?"

Sakura plastered a smile on her face. "This is a good thing, Mom," she smiled brightly. She brought her spoon to her bowl and drank. It barely made its way down her throat before it demanded to come back up.

Tasteless.

xXx

"When did you turn into such a pyromaniac?" Jiraiya asked his stroll companion, with his hands folded behind his back. He walked with a slight hunch.

"It's Tani," Minato said with an air of neutrality—of truth. "Those who are outraged right now will forget what they were so worked up about in less than a week. The politicians and police even sooner."

"Speaking of the police," Jiraiya did not let Minato's pointed words settle until they became pressure against his chest. "You're not worried that she will reach out to Uchiha."

It was not a question but Minato nodded his head regardless. "She won't." He believed that. Her threat had been empty, hot air. She was angry. She needed to feel in control of the situation so she said what she did that gave her that. Even if it was a lie. And he maintained the illusion.

Jiraiya shook his head. It seemed that Minato was perfectly content to ruminate on his thoughts. "How much longer are you staying? Should I put you to work? You have some marketable skills don't you?"

Minato let out a chuckle. "Am I starting to stink?" He asked with a playful raised brow.

"It has been more than three days," Jiraiya clapped him on the back.

Soon. Hopefully soon.

He did not voice the words lest he jinx himself. There was too much at stake.

She waved at the two women who were walking up the street, bundled up in layers with only their wind-bitten faces showing. The swing moved backward slightly, creaking and groaning as she rocked. The sounds of a small motorboat churning in her lap.

"Sakura?" Emi Ito, a woman with salt and pepper hair and gorgeous blue-gray eyes, was the first of the pair to recover. She pushed up her lime-green knit hat with her matching mittens. "Sakura!" She smiled brightly. She began to move faster toward the wrap-around porch. Aya Suzuki was right behind her with slightly more measured steps. Her mustard-colored puffy jacket sounded with each movement. "It is you!" Emi said, pushing the hair from around her mouth. "When did you get here?"

"Not too long ago." Sakura smiled at the two older women. She continued to move slowly in the porch swing. Her ankles were crossed together. The point of her brown boots balanced on the wooden panels of the ground. Her fingers continued to tend to the drowsy tabby in her lap.

"How is your mother doing?" Aya adjusted her fogged-up glasses. "We haven't been able to crack that nut. She's got a tough shell, that one," the woman said with a shake of her head. "But don't worry we're not giving up."

"Not in our vocabulary," Emi rested an arm over the white banister. "You look good, Sakura. The city center is treating you well."

"It is," she nodded her head in polite agreement. "It's nice to see things haven't changed much around here."

"Oh, that's where you could not be more wrong, honey." Aya and Emi shared a knowing look before they laughed. "We have to invite you over for lunch and catch up. We're just dying to know what you've been up to. I'll make mimosas with the good champagne!"

"Yes," Emi gushed, eagerly jumping in. "Any new friends we should be knowing about?"

Sakura laughed. "I'm really not all that social," she tried to keep the awkwardness from her voice. Cheddar tucked his legs under him. He yawned. He was a disgruntled loaf. All the yapping was not pleasurable to his sensitive ears.

"You're going to make us work for it, aren't you?" Aya asked with a grin, her eyes sparkled with excitement.

I'm beginning to see why Mom wasn't so enthusiastic about these walks.

As if the Universe took pity on her at that moment because she was so clearly outclassed and outmatched, the metal door swung open and revealed the nonplussed face of one Mebuki Haruno covered in a tweed jacket that grazed her calves and a red scarf wrapped around her neck exactly three times.

"Mebuki!" Emi grinned from ear to ear. "Hi, how are you?" She asked in a high-pitched voice.

Why is she talking like that…all of a sudden?

"Fine," the woman said, barely sparing them a second glance. She frowned at the pinkette sitting on the porch swing. "Sakura, come inside before you catch a cold. Your hair isn't completely dry and you're not bundled up," Mebuki scolded her as if there was not a gawking audience watching with keen interest.

"Right," Sakura gathered Cheddar into her arms, cradling him to her chest. His tail flicked. He stared down the two strange women with yellow eyes. His hair was standing on end. "Sorry, Ms. Ito, Ms. Suzuki," she dipped her head, smiling sheepishly. "It was nice to see you."

The real you.

"Oh, Sakura," Emi held out her arms as if she was trying to snatch Sakura right out of the air. "When are you free sweetie? I'll make a whole spread."

Just coincidentally before my whole business is spread out in the open to the neighborhood, right?

Sakura could feel her mother's heated gaze that was not-so-subtly holding her disapproval. "I wish I could, Ms. Ito," she said with remorse as she patted Cheddar's backside, trying to get the cat to chill out before he started hissing spit and she caught an errant claw in trying to preserve the peace. "I'm going back to Tani tomorrow. I have work."

"Oh," Aya and Emi exclaimed in disappointment at once. Their breaths collided into a slightly bigger cloud.

"Maybe next time," Sakura softened the sting of rejection with a small smile. "Goodbye." She walked around her mother to the door, holding it open. "Mom?" She called over her shoulder to the rooted woman. Mebuki walked behind her. The doors closed. The locks clicked.

"Sakura?"

"Hm?"

"You're going back to work?" Mebuki asked with dread bleeding into her voice. It held but she could feel her legs begin to shake.

"I am. I called Shizune a couple of days ago. She got me back on the schedule. I was planning on telling you over dinner tonight," Sakura reached out to smooth away the lines on her mother's forehead. She kissed Mebuki's cheek. "Take Cheddar. I'm making us dinner as a thank you for putting up with me."

I know that I haven't been easy.

Before Mebuki could get a word in edgewise, the fat cat was being handed to her. She watched the retreating back of her daughter. Her throat nearly closed in on itself.

xXx

Jiraiya stopped mid-word—mid-tirade where he was berating Nawaki for leaving his empty plate at the table—at Minato standing up abruptly with his phone in his hand, to utter one name in question: Shikaku?

Minato shook his head once. His back was in a rigid line of tension. He was walking with purposeful strides to put as much distance between himself and the remaining three occupants in the dining room. Jiraiya and Tsuande exchanged a long glance. Heavy.

Minato pulled open the shoji door, closing it behind him. He breathed in a cold breath as his bare feet stepped onto the cold engawa. "Ms. Haruno, is everything okay?" He waited with bated breath.

"Minato." Mebuki's voice was shaky, pants really. He reached out for the treated wooden beam for support without any regard for potential splinters. He waited. Mebuki sounded so scared.

"Minato, Sakura's going back to work, to Tani."

He closed his eyes. The sounds of the pound—the koi slept at the bottom of the heated waters—had him feeling like he was drowning.

"I couldn't talk her out of it," Mebuki let out a sob. "I pushed her so hard to go back."

"You didn't know," he reminded her gently. "It's not your fault."

"She's already packed," Mebuki exhaled shakily. "Yuma is where they are right?"

"Yes," he did not have it in him to lie to her. He did not have it in him to think of elaborate lies that she could cling to as the truth to appease her restlessness so that she could sleep. A lie that they both told themselves. Neither one of them would sleep tonight. Just the first of many.

"What are we going to do?" Mebuki whispered.

"She'll be safe," he said with all the calm he could pull from his bones. It had been stored there for decades. "Nothing will happen. She'll be around people. It will keep her safe."

There was a pause. It was so quiet and prolonged that he actually pulled his phone from his ear to see if the call had been silently dropped or if Mebuki hung up—fed up with his empty words.

"She was around people then too at the subway," she pointed out hollowly.

"Ms. Haruno," he pressed his forehead against his curled fist. He breathed slowly. "I promise you, she will be safe."

You have to trust me.

"I can't go to Tani. I can't go to Yuma," Mebuki was crying now, in earnest. He could hear it. "I can't…."

The billboards. The faces. The eyes. The reporters. The attention. The crowds. The traffic. The pollution. The car alarms. The break-ins. The news. The crime. It was all too much for her. She could not deal with it. She could not handle it.

The shame in her voice formed a lump in his throat. "It will be okay."

Mebuki sniffled. He heard water. And Mebuki gulping. "Okay." She sounded better even if it was marginally, he focused on the positive.

"Ms. Haruno try to—"

"Mom?"

Minato's teeth pressed together at the faint voice that pricked his strained ears.

"Who are you talking to?" Sakura asked Mebuki on the other end of the line.

"No one, Sakura," Mebuki lied, quickly and unconvincingly. "No, I'm not interested in lowering my electric bill with solar," she said breathlessly into the phone. "Please don't call again. Thank you," she whispered quickly.

The call ended before he could tell her futilely to not worry. He sighed. His hand curled around his phone. He would not be taking his own advice. He did not give himself a second to decompress. He scrolled through his contacts. He tapped the number he was searching for. He put the phone to his ear.

"It's Nara's Namikaze," he waited for recognition to fill the ancient voice on the other end of the line. "I need that owed favor expedited," he said tightly. His hand shoved into his pocket. He regarded the new moon. Big and bright.

New moon in the sky,

Whispers of dreams yet to bloom—

Hope dances below.

Chapter Text

She must really have heavy steps as there was no other explanation that her frazzled brain could come up with, much less accept. She was loud. And that was exactly why she was in the current situation she found herself in: sitting on her dining table chair in her small eat-in kitchen which smelled faintly of lemons with a cup of tea warming her hands. Sakura watched the thin wisps of steam wafting until they became indiscernible from the ambient air. It would be hours before she fell asleep thanks to the caffeine she had yet to allow to touch her lips. It could be for the best because falling asleep now would surely not win her any pity points.

She's gotta wear herself out…eventually, right?

"And you just disappeared!" Amaya's volume was low but her anger was still climbing. "Calls would not go through. No one knew where you were. Not even Ino in the beginning. Do you have any idea how much you scared us?" Amaya did not even consider pausing to allow Sakura to interject in a feeble attempt to stop the avalanche of words before she was buried under them for all of time. "Mr. Honda was ready to put up fliers, Sakura. On a broken ankle!"

Hairline fractured.

The pinkette grimaced. Her guilt was so great that she could not even point out the inaccuracy in her friend's statement. Nothing was lost, as Amaya certainly would not appreciate the correction.

"And then," the woman glanced over her shoulder at her son engrossed in the TV, snacking while he watched—drinking orange soda straight from the can with the help of a blue bendy-straw. She leaned forward. Her hazel eyes were filled to the brim with sternness. The color was all wrong but she had the expression down to the thinly pressed together lips. Mebuki would be proud.

I should video call Mom. She's probably feeling really lonely.

"Ino's telling me all these crazy things about how you were expecting you-know-who over before your phone went dead-dead and that you're probably just in some lust-crazed, love-nest haze where you forgot to charge your phone and that I should leave you alone because you're finally getting some with the frame of a functioning adult relationship—her words not mine," she huffed, pushing her hair out of her face with clear disgruntlement.

Geez, Ino, is there anyone you haven't run your big mouth to?

If it was allowed, Sakura would have lowered her face into her arms and groaned loudly. She was so beyond mortified that a new word needed to be invented to come close to encapsulating what she was experiencing on a granular level.

"But that didn't sit right with me! It's not like you. No matter how enticing the eye candy is! So I finally steel myself and come up here and what do I find?" Her wrist twisted in a gesture usually used by drivers to quickly and wordlessly ask "What the hell are you doing?" or sometimes, "Do you even have eyes?" It really depended on context.

If you'd just give me a chance to explain.

"A mess," Amaya cut off Sakura the second the woman opened her mouth. "Pasta sauce everywhere. My heart nearly stopped. I thought it was blood at first. I thought that maybe you-know-who did something to you. Because cliches are cliches for a reason. The quiet ones have the most anger. I thought I would be on the news sobbing hysterically asking how something so awful could possibly have happened to such a good person!"

Dear God. Amaya, you and your imagination. And he's not Voldemort, you can say his name. I would prefer it. Saying you-know-who is just tempting Hiro's interest.

She would take on Voldemort—the other you-know-who—in a heartbeat because he was not real. He could not hurt her. Allegedly. Or at the very least she would have a wand—presumably—and she could just spam curses as she always could talk really fast. What are the odds of her falling for Voldemort? Virtually zero. He had zero redeeming qualities.

Avada Kedead.

"But then I saw the ants." The woman paused to shudder. Amaya was not a fan of the creepy crawlies. And that too, especially not indoors. "The brown bits were beef and not your brain. And that wasn't even the worst of it! Because…not even three feet from the crime scene, there was your phone. Obliterated. And the hammer you presumably used was right there!"

Oh yeah…I did that.

Sakura flinched. An apology began to spill out of her mouth. But Amaya was not done. Sakura rubbed the space between her brows and bit back a sigh. She really had not been expecting an ambush.

"Your car, gone! Your keys, gone! You, gone! Clothes missing from your closet. I didn't know what to think! I lost sleep. I lost hair! Years of my life worrying."

Really pile on there, Amaya.

"Ino, livid, in a complete uproar—just as I'm in the police station parking lot to file a missing person because you know they would have just rerouted my call until I gave up—to tell me that you're at your mother's and you got a new phone! Again!" The woman with soft brown hair exhaled slowly through her nose. She was beside herself. That much did not require closeness to see. But the fear—the genuine fear—in the usually fearless woman was masked better. Sakura's stomach twisted and lurched. It was as if she was falling off the viewpoint of Konoha Tower. A twenty-six story drop. A complete and utter freefall and fittingly, Sakura could not muster a single sound. She had to accept her fate.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, for all of it.

"What the H E double hockey sticks happened, Sakura?" Amaya finally asked her, point blank.

Her sweaty palms, wrapped around the ceramic mug, itched. Sakura blinked a couple of times, building up the strength each time to raise her eyes a little higher. She licked her bottom lip slowly.

"I broke up with," she clamped down on her lip with her teeth, leaving impressions, to keep from saying his name or finishing the sentiment. How could something break when it was never joined? "We ended it. We called it off," she said with a shake of her head, not entirely sure when exactly 'she' became interchangeable with 'we'. "I was angry. I was not thinking straight. I'm sorry I put you and everyone through all this. I am so sorry."

I wasn't thinking straight. Maybe I'm still not.

Amaya forced herself not to voice the first, second, and even third thoughts that went through her head. She traced the straight, flat line of the molding just before the cabinets met the ceiling. Three times. She traced it three times. The words of Sakura being a grown woman and acting like a thirteen-year-old girl had all been flushed from her mind. Empathy and sympathy started to cut away at the rage. Sure, Sakura was a grown woman and capable but in this, in this area, she was woefully inexperienced. Painfully. She might as well be thirteen.

"Well," Amaya clicked her tongue at the pitiful sight in front of her. "I hope your aim is better than your rash decision-making."

Sakura laughed. Her eyes glittered with something other than mirth. She reacted out her hand from around the handle of her green cup. Amaya rolled her eyes but did not move hers away when Sakura's fingers curled around it.

"Just call me next time," the slightly older woman said in an exaggerated huff. "Save me some drama. I have enough on my plate as is."

"I put you through more than enough, it won't happen again. I'm done being dramatic. I'm done compounding one mistake with another. My bad decision-making phase is behind me," Sakura made a promise she had no business making. "And thank you for everything." Her plants were alive. She did not have ants. And her freezer was stocked with home-cooked meals. Sakura's face blossomed into a smile as Amaya squeezed her fingers back.

Jiraiya paused wiping down the wood grain countertop with a slightly damp and warm towel. His white brows were pressed together and his lips donning a frown.

"What are you doing here?" He crossed his arms over his dark green apron and asked, leaning back against the counter behind him, regarding the fully dressed Minato—suit and all.

"She's starting work today," he answered into the quiet echo of the empty shop. The lights were dimmed. The street outside was quiet. The shop would not be open for a couple more hours. "I don't want to add to it." The anxiety, the difficulty, the problem, the dauntingness of facing this new day, he did not want to make it harder than it already was.

"Hm," Jiraiya grunted, not without some suspicion. "Couldn't sleep?" He asked, peering at the task at hand. The white towel moved in uniform circles. "Not even with you getting in pretty late?"

I had to check her car.

Which meant he had to wait for her to fall asleep. Her curtain—the one to the sliding door—was drawn. There was at least that. A positive even if he had lost tens of minutes watching and waiting for the improbable—for her to open them and grant him just a glimpse. He had to check her car even if Hora had done it last night. The redhead had texted him saying as much and that too not without attitude.

"I have some business to attend to," Minato's mouth was on autopilot. He did not need to consult his brain. He sighed, his eyes holding a weariness that the dark circles on his face supplemented.

"Right." Jiraiya's brows came together in the middle before they rose in silent question when Minato did not make any movement to go to this business he referred to. "Spit it out. I don't have all day."

"I'm," there was hesitation everywhere the white-haired man looked. "I'm really good at it, Professor," Minato's small sigh said it all. "Whether I want to be or not. It's the truth."

I'm on track to make the Clan another two million ryo—seven hundred and fifty thousand of which is new business—before the end of the month. I didn't even have to try.

He had done well for himself in the past couple of weeks. Or he would have, had he taken his usual ten percent—a very generous and large number compared to those who only got a measly one or two percent on the bottom of the ladder—cut. He was so far out in the field that he could not even see the dog house. So to win back favor, Minato was giving the Clan one hundred percent of the sales—if he did not count for the couple of percent he carved out for Rihito who was there when the handshakes had taken place. The Nara needed to meet his goals and Minato needed to pay his dues for pulling the man from his usual day-to-day. Sasori's fees were being supplemented separately by Minato out of his own earnings but that was not a new development. It was long standing in fact, ever since Hora was shot during what should have been a routine training exercise. Sasori had retained compensation from what Kiba brought in a stipend of sorts but since Kiba was AWOL which meant no money so Minato had to pick up the slack there too. All to keep the books clean and the accountant from poking his nose in things. It was easy. He had a system. And it was holding up to this unplanned stress test rather admirably.

I can do this with my eyes closed: find new clients, appease existing ones, keep everyone happy, keep money rolling in, and make everyone think they came out on top of the negotiations and terms—it's a reflex at this point.

Jiraiya did not interrupt as it would have the opposite effect that either of them were going for. Minato would clamp up and spend the rest of an undisclosed amount of time building up even more internal pressure and Jiraiya would be left wondering, pestered, on what it ever could have been that was on the blond's mind.

"What if…what if I'm not good at anything else?" Minato's question was addressed to the ground as his eyes were focused on an unremarkable tile on the floor that was no different than any of its neighbors thus it did not warrant attention or contemplation.

What if this was all he was good for now?

When I left sprinting there was no choice. I just did. I didn't have to think. But leaving the Clan….

What would life even look like without it?

"Do you know the difference between a fool, a wise man, and an imposture?" Jiraiya's deep voice lifted the question to slowly fill the room. Minato's demeanor changed like the season from insecure to perplexed to curious before it settled on alert.

That only one knows the truth?

"No," he shook his head, his cobalt eyes glistening with the prospect of learning something new. Ever since he was a boy he was always that way: hungry for knowledge. Wisdom.

Jiraiya turned around and grabbed a green to-go cup from the top of the stack. He grabbed the pot that had just finished brewing. He filled the cup to nearly the brim, leaving just enough room for a splash of milk, which he added. He handed Minato the cup secured with a lid that was now surrounded by a cardboard sleeve.

"Neither do I," Jiraiya grinned at him. It was all teeth.

Minato's chuckled, he tapped the back of his head with his hand perhaps gently in a chide that he fell for it at his age.

"Don't let me keep you," Jiraiya dipped his head in a nod. "From your business." Dark eyes glittered with something better left unidentified.

"No free cheese Danish for me?" Minato asked, half-smiling, finding his voice. "Am I not pretty enough?"

"So you have to do even more pushups and piss off my lovely wife—who by the way will take it out on me?" Jiraiya snorted animatedly at the hypothetical that could easily be reality. "Get out of here, Kid, before your face scares off any more of my lovely regulars."

"Understood," Minato raised his cup as if bringing it to toast.

"Yeah," Jiraiya found the towel again. The front door opened and closed. "I don't think you do, Kid. I don't think you do…if you did, you'd know it's much too late to ask a question like that," he grumbled very much like a grumpy old man that he was feeling more and more like these days. Jiraiya picked up his phone and dialed a number. He inhaled deeply when the line was engaged. "Nawaki!" He barked into the microphone much too loud. "Get your ass up here, you deadbeat!" The teen groaned loudly in response. Jiraiya grinned. His day was off to a promising start.

The trepidation of the daunting prospect of facing the new day melted off of her like hot wax on a steadily burning candle at the unexpected but very welcomed sight at the edge of the curb in front of the double doors that read "Emergency." She could have been a literal goddess with the soft dewy glow she had around her in her dark plum jacket and platinum locks gathered and held back in a ballerina bun. She was grace, elegant, and poised. The face of an angel guarding the doors where so many were rushed in on the brink of death.

"Ino," Sakura breathed the name in marvel and appreciation, finding herself suddenly fighting back tears. She could only hope for mercy even if she deserved none. She held open her arms with every intention of wrapping herself around Ino's strength if the woman would allow it.

"You look like shit," Ino said matter-of-factly, eyes moving from head to toe once.

There she is, the siren I know and love.

Sakura's arms lowered slowly. They became heavier, carved from marble. She knew it was too good to be true. She should have seen it coming. Ino would expect groveling and the more people that watched, the quicker she would be forgiven.

"The suburbs ruined you like I knew they would," she continued to maintain the one-sided barrage.

"Should I get down on my knees?" Sakura asked with more sass than she was allocated given the circumstances.

Ino snorted as she adjusted her weight on her thin heels. Her inserts were truly the strongest of support systems. "Tempting but you'd ruin your coat. And I bought you that coat."

And we never did find a replacement for the brown one.

"The gift that keeps on reminding," Sakura crossed her arms over the red wool. She stood on the asphalt of the curve, watching for a car large enough to run her over. They would have to be thorough. There were some really good doctors in the building.

"Here," Ino extended the offering. A medium-sized dark green disposable coffee cup with a white lid. "It's still warm." A fragment of normalcy and routine.

Just what I was craving.

Sakura replaced Ino's fingers around the cardboard sleeve with her own. She smiled in thanks. She was appreciative of the fact Ino knew her so well. There was no pastry that would go to waste on account of the bees that swarmed in her stomach. Food was far from an ally.

Not to mention the four and a half pounds I gained from all that sleeping and eating just lazing about.

"How bad is it?" Sakura braced herself, asking the question that had been on her mind since Amaya and Hiro left her apartment last night to be alone with her thoughts. The coffee, she had drunk a sip of, warmed her enough to ease some of the pricking sensation between her brows.

"It's been long enough for it to be weird," Ino answered candidly, almost making Sakura wish she had not. "But not too long that they forgot all about you."

"So right in the sweet spot?" She asked, stomach knotted and hands clammy.

"Nothing you can't handle," Ino concluded with a level of nonchalance that filled Sakura with something other than dread. There were no secrets here. She knew that the whispers started hours before when her name was added back into the schedule rotation, Shizune did not have to breathe a word for the news to spread like fire. "We're getting lunch. On me. I don't care if it's a pack of peanut M 's from the vending machine. I don't want to hear excuses."

Never.

"Okay," she agreed with a smile. Something to look forward to. Something to get her through the first half of the day that had not even started yet.

"And you're treating me to ramen for dinner. Ichiraku's. You got me eating carbs after 11 AM again, Sakura. It's all your fault."

"A thousand and one apologies," Sakura murmured mindlessly.

"I want black sesame soft serve after," Ino tacked on with a sigh. "My diet's been shot to hell. Might as well make the most of it. We're starting up running next week."

You're giving me a whole week to ease in? How magnanimous of you, Queen Ino.

"Okay." Sakura stepped over the curb. The height difference was not as stark now, she still had to tilt her head back slightly to look her in her baby-blue eyes.

Ino hooked her arm around her. "Did you sleep at all?" She asked.

"Some," Sakura answered truthfully. "Just nervous."

Ino snorted and rolled her eyes. "Medicine hasn't changed in the thirty-three days you've been away." She walked with confident strides, demanding that Sakura keep up—taking the decision and the chance to overthink out of her hands. "Just one patient at a time. This city is insane. Watch, you won't even have a chance to catch your breath before the afternoon."

Sakura nodded her head oddly comforted by that one constant, content to let Ino carry the conversation. She barely even noticed the faces that they passed on their way to the changing room as she sipped her coffee. Iruka had given her a small smile and a kind "welcome back" as they cleared security. She made an extra effort to not notice the wiry build of a certain white-haired doctor who was holding a cup holder with two dark green coffees, and a greasy bag with a logo she would recognize anywhere: Naruto's Gutsy Cafe. The two women turned the corner. Sakura let out a breath.

xXx

She dragged her boots over the concrete. She was mindful to not step in the same potholes she avoided when she was behind the wheel. Her whole body ached. In her head, she was not out in the cold, dreary, damp street, she was somewhere warm just to survive. A healthy amount of disassociation. She could smell it in the air. The rain was not done just yet. Her fingers were cold and tight around a white paper bag that was rolled three times. She brought a curled first to the side of the glass. She tapped once. It lowered. Sakura did the same so she could look him in the eye, her back curved.

"We should look into carpooling. Save the planet and what have you," she began conversationally despite being drained of her social battery. It was a lot; getting back into the swing of things. It felt like she had taken punches all day from Kumo's Heavyweight Champion, a man who was known to hundreds of millions by just his first name, a vowel: A. All the while being mentally and emotionally bled dry by in-pain patients, anal administrators, and the gossiping gang of doctors and nurses.

"You're just saying that so you can use the express lane."

"Two things can be true at once you know," she rolled her eyes just for the sake of it. Sakura slipped him the white bag.

Sasori worked to unfold it, he peered down at the aluminum in a distinctive shape.

"Sorry, it's just a hot dog," Sakura said with an apologetic sigh. "It was the quickest thing I could grab on the way and order without having to talk to anyone." She had pointed and paid. It was her second favorite interaction of the day. That too after redirecting Ino's offer for her to stay over at her place by agreeing to a spa day with her at a later time.

He began to unwrap the foil. The smell hit him in the face. It was still warm.

"Grilled onions and peppers are in the bag, along with napkins." Sakura tapped the window where the glass had disappeared. "I forgot a drink, sorry," she just realized her blunder. It was not completely her fault. The stand where she got the hotdog from was all out of soda cans.

Sasori held out a plastic bottle with a red label and cap. He shook it. "Night, Doc. Get some sleep."

I'll try my best.

"Hm," she hummed noncommittally. She left him to have his dinner in peace without an audience. The stairs were a bigger obstacle to overcome. It took her back to the days of her being a resident, where all she knew was tired. She had never been so stressed and sleep-deprived in her life. She almost quit the profession more than once. She would have had it not been for Ino and her stubbornness. Ino needed competition after all—someone to set her sights on to beat in order to be motivated enough to study. They got each other through medical school and then their residencies.

She'll get me out of this too. I know she will.

Sakura traced the dog tags on her keys. She promised her brother she would be a doctor. Nothing was going to get in the way of that promise. And she did not let it. She had reached her goal. But now what? Realistically—honestly speaking—she was nowhere close to where she wanted to be. The clinic, the clinic was neglected and it was her own damn fault. She did not take it seriously so how could she expect potential patients to do the same? It was limited because she was limiting the hours she put into it.

Sasuke—the man for all his faults—said something that she could not quite shake. He said she had potential. In fact, if she was remembering correctly, he had claimed she had "so much potential." Maybe the clinic did too. Maybe she was limiting it by limiting herself. Maybe she needed to be less passive. Maybe even more change was in order. She stayed out of trouble while she was in school. Maybe that was something to look into. Maybe if she did not have any spare time, trouble could not find her much less the other way around. Maybe.

Maybe later. After a shower. After some sleep.

She slipped the key into her lock. A quick glance at the monitoring app on her phone said that all the sensors were armed and had not been disturbed. Before opening the door, she changed the mode from "Away" to "Home". She waited for the app to confirm that the motion sensors were disengaged. With a sigh, she pushed through the door. She was already halfway out of her boots. She peeled out of her jacket and set her bag on the console table. Sakura locked the door. She made her way to her bedroom, undoing the zipper of her black dress. Grunting in frustration when she realized that she forgot the damn hook when it caught around her head.

She sat on the dining room table with a knee over the other. Her computer was out before her. The backlight intensified the dark circles under her eyes. Another day at work had been taxing. The novelty of her rather sudden disappearance and reemergence was nowhere close to wearing off. Not many knew she lived in Tani and the ones that did would never tell. So Sakura, even at her most paranoid, did not allow herself to entertain the thought that they were close to figuring out why she suddenly left. From what she gathered—the halls echoed and the walls listened—the front runners were that she had another nervous breakdown or she went out of town to have an abortion, or maybe it was a miscarriage. She did not particularly care to commit the details of the awful rumors to memory. It just was not worth the very valuable headspace.

Sakura rolled her neck, letting out a soft sigh. Her fingers moved across the black keys with backlit white capital letters.

Resuming normal hours of operation. Now accepting appointments.

She typed into the textbox of her website for the clinic. She clicked the blue button that would make it visible to the world that cared. She leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen.

Sakuto Memorial Clinic

Somehow using his last name—their father's last name—felt wrong when she was thinking of names for the modest clinic that in the early stages did little beyond providing checkups to those without insurance or confidence in the medical system, so she had opted to use his first name. Front and center. He was involved in every step of the process. He had set the cornerstone for the establishment that was ironically a tattoo parlor before she purchased the space outright from her landlord—the Ramen Man, as everyone so affectionately called him. He had been gracious enough to allow her to attach a second entrance from her home. She had gotten all the permits, did all the research, and paid for every expense but it still held a special place in her heart that he had agreed to it. She would never forget that.

Her phone buzzed. Sakura reached for it, tearing her eyes from the dimmed screen. She moved the trackpad. There were no new notifications. She donned a smile on her face and answered the video call.

"Hi, Mom," she waved. "How are you?"

"Show me," Mebuki's face was much too close to the camera. All Sakura saw was half of her eye, some of her dark reading glasses, and a whole mess of the ceiling.

Sakura turned the orientation of the camera. She showed her mother the dimly lit kitchen—only one of the canned lights was turned on. "I'm at home," she wiggled her fingers in the frame to prove that it was not some trick that was beyond her meager computer skills but Mebuki still thought was within her capabilities.

"Good," the woman said unhappily. "Turn me around."

Sakura did as ordered.

"I saw you change the mode on the sensors. You didn't call me right away," Mebuki had to be frowning. Sakura could only go on her voice for that as she was still very much not centered in the frame.

"I took a bath," Sakura set the phone on the table, she propped it against the salt and pepper shakers. "I was gross." She was. She had been puked and bled on today. And the short showers—yes, multiple—in the hospitals did nothing to erase the memory of the stench from her nose.

I helped with the soreness.

"Did you drink while you were inside?"

"No, Mom," she refrained from rolling her eyes. She did not care for the question nor the fact that her mother strong-armed her to add her to the monitoring app. Or the painstaking hours lost to trying to teach her how to use it at the dining table. There were so many questions. But there was no alternative. She knew it brought Mebuki some solace and Sakura was more than willing to give her that. It was a small price to pay for her freedom—for her life back and that too mostly guilt-free.

"And he's outside? The man?" Mebuki moved even closer now. "The one with red hair?"

"Yes," Sakura's smile was more strained, she shook her head. "The other one." The late-night calls and the early-morning calls were becoming monotonous. Maybe she should figure out this deep-fake technology and have some AI-bot talk to her mom for her.

Hiro would know.

"Did you eat dinner? The frozen broth I sent with you?"

"I did," Sakura bolstered with a nod. She was still working her way through Amaya's meals. "I overcooked the udon noodles a little bit so they kept breaking but the broth was delicious. The meat didn't turn out half bad. But I over-seasoned, it was a little salty."

"Use butter next time, just a little bit. But make sure it's the unsalted kind. The fat helps with the sodium." A loud yawn had Mebuki closing her Cyclops eye.

"Go to sleep, Mom," Sakura's smile softened.

"Cheddar woke up from the dead of sleep at the sound of your voice," her mother shook her head. More of her was visible on the screen. "He's sitting next to me right now. Listening."

"Oh, can I see?" She asked with excitement. "It's the button on the right-hand side. The one with the arrows," she tried to explain—again. The video paused. "No, Mom, the arrows."

"That's what I pressed!" Mebuki uttered with frustration. She was back in the frame, the camera was facing nothing. "Just here." Dangling feet entered the frame. "Can you see him?"

She laughed. All she saw were his pink toe beans. She had to rely on her imagination to picture his disgusted expression. "Hi, Cheddar. Pspsps."

"Don't antagonize him, Sakura," Mebuki warned her sternly. "You know how he gets if he doesn't get his eighteen hours."

Oh, she knew. "I miss watching you chew, Cheddar Cheese." She really missed watching him chew. "Do you miss me, pretty kitty?" She asked in a high-pitched voice. A bald tail tip flicked. Cheddar meowed softly, melting her heart in a puddle of goo. "That's my sweet boy," she cooed, touching her finger to her screen.

It was barren beneath his leather soles. The sun was at its peak in the sky but weakened in the cold months. It barely warmed the skin on the back of his neck. Golden metal frames glittered, all the same, the dark shade covered his eyes. Dust covered his chocolate-brown boots, the cuffs of his dark-wash jeans that were rolled, and his hands. A small rock formation with three boulders was to his left. Minato's fingers went to the smoke behind his ear, adjusting it so it would not fall. The creases of his palm caked with fine dust.

He let out a sigh, kicking up dirt and dust just because he could. His steps were slow to the dark car. Metal scraped in complaint when its wood hilt leaned against the hood of the car by the front tire. He clapped his hands together to free them of excessive dust. The blond pulled open the passenger side door he had not bothered to unlock. He snagged the plaid collared shirt that had been hanging from the headrest. Emerald and green. He slipped it over his white t-shirt, straightening the collar. Next, his hands went to the glove compartment, Horseshoe chimed when he turned the key to the right. The black panel fell open. He found the folded-up parchment. Old and wrinkled. Minato rounded to the front of his hood. He smoothed it out and held it in place with one palm flat in the middle. His right hand migrated to the breast pocket of his collared shirt. The pen clicked. He marked a black 'X' over the marker.

Another dead end.

He had not wanted to call in the favor so soon and certainly not on this. It was his ace to keep in his back pocket—leverage, it was leverage. But because of his own failure to find the Uchiha in time, he has to burn it. He had to exhaust all options. He knew that. With what he had and the constraints it was the right call to make. At least he hoped so. Ignoring the intrusive thought that told him the rest of the markers would not produce any different result than the previous ones helped marginally. He knew the definition of insanity and while each day it felt like he was getting closer to the line he could not uncross, he had reason to believe he was still on the right—correct—side of things.

He closed the map carefully; intentionally he did not acknowledge the four other black 'Xs'. Without a spoken sound, he hosted the shovel to return it to the trunk of the sedan. The trunk slammed closed. He dusted off his hands, his arms, and his torso with care to minimize the particles he transferred to the cabin. Minato got back into the car and drove off. Tires crunching gravel and leaving a dust cloud in their wake. Not a leaf or living thing was found to be disturbed.

The sanctity of her sanctuary was broken with a soft sound. Sakura did not turn her head. That would require too much effort. She peered down at the greenspace that was the greeting to the hospital. It was much too busy to come close to achieving what the space was designed for. Serenity. The talking, the feet shuffling past, the hum of the metal detectors, the squeak of wheelchairs being pushed through was simply too much. Everything happened right at the front. And that was why she preferred to view it from above. From the fourth floor to be exact.

The metal of the railing cut into the soft skin of her arms. Her navy scrubs hung around her not quite tight enough to be constrictive like a straightjacket, which was the sensation she sought after the whirlwind of the last seventeen minutes and thirteen and a half seconds of her life.

A patient who came in strapped to an ambulance gurney alive was now lying on a cold hard slab of unforgiving stainless steel with a tag around her toe. She was five. Hit by a car after running after her ball that went into the streets. They could not stabilize her enough to even chance a risky life-saving surgery. Sakura pressed her forehead against her folded hands which could be mistaken for prayer. Her ears rang with the little girl's mother's cries. She would be hearing them for a while to come.

A shoulder brushed up against hers. She was torn between acknowledging the gesture and thus being forced to have an uncomfortable discussion regarding boundaries and professionalism with someone her senior, or pretending it did not happen and running the risk of either encouraging him or it escalating. She sighed. His distinctive smell was overly minty, to the point, it was abrasive but still not strong enough to cover the disinfectant. No other doctor smelled like him. And she was in no state of mind delving into why she even knew what he smelled like.

Maybe it's because he's always around, watching. It's unsettling.

And mildly upsetting.

"Sorry," he mumbled a disingenuous apology as he made no movements to rectify the contact. If anything, the pressure seemed to increase in a telltale sign that he was encroaching in her space all the more.

Forcing the issue.

Sakura lowered her hands. She stepped slightly to the side. A sliver of space between them was born from the simple action.

"Are you alright, Sakura?" He asked her with concern in his dark eyes behind a layer of metal and glass.

She hated the way her name sounded coming out of his mouth. Wrong. It just felt so wrong.

"I saw what happened," he explained with hints of sheepishness. Just enough to humanize himself to her. "You did everything you could."

I know that.

Her guilt or the lingering traces of insecurities she still had about her shortcomings was not the reason why she was here in what had been her solitude. No. She knew she did everything she could. There was nothing more anyone could have done. She was at peace with that fact. What she was not at peace about was the fact that a five-year-old died today. A tiny little thing. She was angry at the parents of the girl for not watching their child more closely, she was angry at the driver for taking her eyes off the road for just a second to change the song that was playing on her phone. She was angry at the cars that took too long to get out of the way of the ambulance that was screaming at them to move. She was angry at it all—the circumstances that led up to everything. This did not have to happen. This should not have happened. If it did not happen, a little girl would be in the arms of her parents laughing and smiling. And she would not be out in the stairwell overlooking the greenspace.

Whispers in the breeze,

Child's laughter echos on walls—

Stars mourn sparkling tears.

"Sakura." His hand moved to cover hers. "You shouldn't hold it in. You should talk about it."

And you should leave me alone.

"Dr. Yakushi." Sakura slipped her hand from under his. She shoved both of them into the hip pockets of her white coat. She turned so that there was even less reason for him to touch her. The railing dug into her side. She welcomed it. She stood tall with her hair in a low ponytail and her sneakers a shiny white, crossed over each other. Everything about her was closed off. "I am alright. Thank you for checking up on me. Your concern is recognized but please, it's not necessary."

I don't need it. I don't want it.

Her eyes said to him. In the back of her mind, she wondered when the day would come when she would have to utter those words out loud for him to hear. Maybe then they would come across loud and clear.

"Sakura," Kabuto pushed up his thin metal glasses with the pad of his middle finger. His dark eyes were focused on one thing and one thing alone, her face, and trying to commit it to memory. "There's something I need to tell you."

Please no.

Her stomach dropped to her toes. She inwardly cursed every step she took to get from the ER to the fourth floor—the very steps he followed behind. She begged and pleaded with the Universe to get her out of this predicament. She was begging for a damn page. She did not care if it was to clean bedpans. She would do it with a smile and gratitude.

Anything. Anything to get me away from this.

He was respected. He had a say. He had a rapport with the administration. He was an asset. He was a draw for people to come to this very hospital. He had power. He had a research lab in the building with more than a couple of national grants with immense promise and buzz. He was the creme de la creme. She was just the doctor who had a mental breakdown while treating a patient and who disappeared for more than a month with next to no notice. He could ruin her. He could ruin her career at the premier hospital in all of Fire.

Please turn around. Please leave me alone. Please get paged.

"I must confess," he carried on like a bad song. He was completely tone-deaf to her reception or he simply did not care. Or he wanted to force her hand by making her the bad guy.

She did not have a mirror so she could not confirm if the cageness she felt reflected on her face. Trapped, she felt trapped. Her eyes darted to the door. The rest of the stairs were either behind her—she would have to turn her back to him—or behind him. The placement was not great.

"Dr. Yakushi," she smiled nervously, the corner of her lips twitching in an involuntary stress response. "I really should get back. Can this wait?" She brought a hand to her beaded-with-sweat brow.

"Sakura," he held her in place with his eyes. So dark. So flat. So unnerving. "It won't take long. Please," he insisted with that gentle voice of his, smiling softly in a way that always seemed apologetic like he was sorry for taking up her time.

She nodded her head despite the way her gut screamed at her.

"I admire you," Kabuto's smooth voice spoke the words that had her thinking maybe she read the situation wrong yet again. She maintained eye contact despite the twisting and turning in her stomach as she tried her best to actively listen without jumping to conclusions. Again. "These weeks apart made me realize something—something I have tried hard to downplay or even outright fight. I missed you."

Run. Run. Run away!

The voice in her head screamed along her insides. But she remained rooted like a tree. Immoble. Exposed. Vulnerable. Kabuto stole her breath in the worst way possible with the admission. She felt herself clench up.

"I see you more than a coworker, Sakura. I have fee—"

She exhaled in relief. She turned her head toward the door. She nearly jumped in the air for joy at the familiar logic and gravity-defying silver hairdo. She had never been so happy to see him as she was at that moment.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

"Detective Hatake," she moved her left foot until it was right next to her right. She smiled at him with her side now to Kabuto and her back to the railing.

Oh, Kakashi! I could kiss you right now.

"Yo," he held up his hand in nonchalance, indifferent to the tense atmosphere that still lingered in the stairwell. "Dr. Yakushi," he dipped his head in greeting to the stony-faced doctor who did not return the gesture.

"Are you here to interview a patient?" She stepped forward all but one step. That was all the space available to her.

"Just wrapped up, actually," Kakashi tucked the small notepad into the inner pocket of his dark suit. His eyes crinkled in a manner that meant he was smiling. Sakura knew the difference between his fake smile—a grimace—and the real deal even with his dark facemask. It matched his jacket. He color-coordinated like that, always. She supposed it was not that hard when he only wore three colors: navy, black, and slate gray.

"Do you have a moment?" She asked him. Her smile and eyes communicated long beyond the spoken question.

Please. Please. Please.

Kakashi let his eyes wander over to the silent doctor who was staring at the ground before he nodded his head. "Sure. Walk with me?" He gestured to the stairs at his right a second before moving closer to them.

I knew there was a real reason why they promoted you.

"Yes," Sakura turned to Kabuto. "Sorry, Dr. Yakushi. It's important," she smiled apologetically, moving fast to keep up with Kakashi's long strides. On the other side of him, the side furthest from Kabuto.

Kabuto turned his head, watching them go down the steps. They were walking much too close. Sakura kept grazing his arm or hand with hers and the man did not seem to either mind or notice based on the lack of separation he did not create.

"Tsk," Kabuto kissed his teeth, seething.

xXx

It was ridiculous. They were out in the open. It was her car. He was police. It was perfectly normal for him to be flat on his stomach with a flashlight in his hand and a phone in the other. Maybe not normal, but no crime was being committed. And yet, her eyes darted all around the second story of the parking garage where she had parked along with all the employees of the hospital that drove today. So far she had not run into any coworkers or acquaintances but the feeling that they could be caught was pushing her to rock back and forth on her heels and toes. She was gnawing on her bottom lip while the excuse she would use (Detective Hatake noticed I had a nail in my tire and he was just concerned that it would blow out on the highway) to try to explain this if someone did ask. She locked eyes with the lens of a dark camera, wondering what the retention policy for footage, that the company the hospital used for security had, was.

"When did you notice this?" Kakashi's muffled voice called out from the other side of her car.

"Um," Sakura clencher her hands around the objects in her charge. "I dropped my keys and that's when I saw it. Two or so weeks ago. What is it?" She asked innocently, purposely vague with her timelines.

Kakashi pulled himself to his feet. He dusted his black shirt off. Sakura held open his jacket that had been draped over her arms. He nodded his head in thanks before shrugging into it. He straightened the collar at the back of his neck. She handed him his badge and his holstered gun which he readjusted on his belt.

"It's just some car part right?" She asked him, not expecting his prolonged silence, she crossed her arms over her chest to keep the warmth in. She could see the sharp line of his jaw under his navy mask. That was not good. "Kakashi?" She asked out of confusion at the sudden lack of space between them. She blinked in rapid succession three times.

"Don't look at the camera," he muttered into her ear, turning them so their backs were to it.

"You're scaring me," she did not hide the panic in her eyes.

"It's a tracker, Sakura," his eyes were narrowed and his voice caused the fine hair on the back of her neck to stand on end. "Someone is keeping tabs on you." His hand around her elbow clenched momentarily with a noticeably tighter grip.

So it's not a prop.

So it was not an empty scar tactic meant to control. She gulped loudly. "Who?"

Kakashi's palm pressed flat against her back in a gesture that could still pass as innocent if someone saw them. Despite the three layers of clothing: cotton, flannel, and a polyester cotton blend, the contact burned hot and straight to uncomfortable. She stepped to her side, following his lead and he eked them out of prime range for the camera. His pen clattered from his pocket. Without thinking, she bent down to pick it up. She held it to the ground. He met her crouched form with his hand wrapped around her wrist. That too was warm against her too-cold fingers. They were far from their usual agile self.

"I could ask you the same thing," his eyes were narrowed and his voice low. Accusatory.

"Are you seriously interrogating me now?" She asked him indignantly, struggling to keep her anger in check. "You just told me I have a tracker on my car," she hissed at him.

"And we both know you already knew that," Kakashi's filtered breath fanned her face. "You can't fool me, Sakura."

"Hatake," she warned him to tread cautiously—extremely cautiously. She had a shorter temper for him, for whatever reason.

"The force uses these," the silver-haired man was watching her face closely so he did not miss a flicker of emotion: shock. That he could understand but it quickly changed to something else. That he could not explain.

He wasn't lying. Or he put Sasuke up to it. Or it was someone else.

Sakura licked her lips. "How long?"

"Impossible to say without me taking it off, or going back to the station to check the logs," Kakashi sighed because he knew that would mean it would be on the record. If he poked around the likelihood of whoever was responsible finding out was high. That was if he went through the official channels…there was always another way. "You noticed it after Uchiha served that warrant on the clinic?"

"You heard about that?" She asked him in a whisper, more taken aback than she should have been. He was a cop. Konoha was big but it could be really small too.

"I did." The accusatory nature of his statement was not missed by her. But she did not comment on how he felt having to find out at work.

"Did you read the official report?" She raised her eyes to meet his. "Unofficially."

Say yes. Say yes!

"I did not," Kakashi pressed into her wrist with his thumb. His fingerless gloves were warm, heating too small of a surface area for it to be meaningful in significance. She was shivering. Or maybe she was just covering for the fact that she was more scared than she was letting on. "Conflict of interest," he explained in the presence of her confusion. She knew him to be noisy.

You disclosed?

"How?" She asked with a frown and furrowed brow. "Because we slept together?"

Kakashi shook his head in muted disbelief. "Yes, because we sleep together," he kept his frustration at having to say it outloud to himself—mostly. "And there is a shared history between our families. Your parents used my parents' address for almost a decade," he finished quickly and smoothly.

Sakura's mouth closed at his use of tense—she stopped listening in all honesty after that point. She went quiet and as still as she could. Images of a very different frame—the one of a sprinter— came to her mind. Broader shoulders, less defined abdominals, toner arms, stronger thighs, more scars and ink, and a sharper face—twisted in her sheets. Breathing down heavily over her—in her ear. She brushed her shoulder against her neck. Eyes no less intense despite their lighter hue.

"I'm sorry Sakura," Kakashi's voice was gentle so as to not startle her from her thoughts.

"Hm?" She blinked back to the present.

"That I wasn't there for you during all this." Kakashi—the parts of him he allowed her to see out in the open—was genuinely remorseful. "I'm sorry for the radio silence. It must have been terrifying to go through it alone."

I didn't. I wasn't….

She swallowed thickly, letting the intrusive thought go by without engagement. "I wasn't expecting you to be there," she cleared her throat roughly and pushed to her feet. He let go of her wrist. "You have nothing to be sorry for." She held out his pen. He too had risen to his full stature.

He took the pen between his fingers. Kakashi thought better of saying the words in his head out loud. He glanced at her car. "I'll do some digging to confirm. What number is good for me to reach you?"

Sakura pulled out her phone, she barely even consulted it as her fingers moved. Kakashi's pocket buzzed. "I need to get back to work," she declared. He watched her pink ponytail until she was completely out of sight with uniform, purposeful steps. She did not look back. Not even once.

"That's it," she said in a low, practiced voice that carried a lot of calmness. Her finger glided over the area with the raw, red, blistering skin. A sharp inhale of pain melted into a hiss of relief as the clear glob of aloe vera gel was spread over the area.

"You're doing great, honey," a male voice called out from somewhere over her left. He held his wife's hand tightly in a never-ending dance of alternating between kissing her knuckles and her temple.

"You are, Akane," Sakura smiled reassuringly. She moved the screen of the monitor closer to her. She felt the woman hold her breath. Sakura shook her head. "Keep breathing, Akane, just like we practiced. Slow and purposeful. Breathe in," Sakura coached. "Hold for three," the woman's chest did not move, "exhale for five," her chest lowered and there was a whistle of air. "Good. Just like that. Mr. Takada, can you help her with the counting?" She briefly glanced at the man to ensure he was listening.

"Yes, yes," he said quickly. His parlor was sweaty and his voice was shaking. "Okay, Honey, breathe in."

Sakura adjusted the white transducer to get a better angle. She could feel their eyes boring into the back and side of her head. "Would you like to know the sex?" Sakura asked them with a smile.

"The baby's okay?" Akane asked her tearfully, still very much distraught even with the measured breathing. "I didn't burn her?"

"We're hoping for a girl," her husband explained at Sakura's raised brow. "The power of manifestation?" He asked weakly, very much exhausted by trying his best to hold everything together.

"The baby is fine," Sakura said reassuringly before Akane's blood pressure could spike thanks to another round of hysterics. "The burns are first-degree. The lowest measurable unit. Nothing to worry about. They will heal fine on their own. Just don't pick at them. If they get itchy, apply either aloe vera gel—I'll send some home with you—or petroleum jelly. Cold compresses should help too. Keep out of the sun, even if it doesn't feel very sunny out," Sakura leaned back in her stool. She reached over to the side table for a cool damp towel. She began to wipe away the excess gel—not aloe vera—she had used to the woman's stomach. "So what's the answer?" She looked between the shell-shocked first-time would-be parents.

They exchanged a look before nodding vigorously. Sakura chuckled. She pointed to the still screen. Their eyes followed. "A little girl," she beamed at them. "I guess it worked."

Akane let out a shriek that had Sakura's heart jumping in surprise. It was a marvel she managed to keep her exterior calm and that she did not cram her fingers into or against her ears. The woman covered her mouth. Her husband was beside himself, crying with what Sakura hoped were tears of joy. They were so worked up that it was hard to tell honestly.

"A girl," Akane held her husband's hand in both of hers. He brushed the tears from her eyes. "Toma, we're having a girl. Actually!"

"We're having a girl," Toma said in a voice rough with texture. "A girl."

Sakura let them gaze upon the screen, freezing the picture. She clicked some buttons and the sound of a printer firing filled the room. She got up to her feet searching for adhesive square bandages. She brought them back and started to cover the burns on her hands, feet, and stomach.

"I'm so glad our baby girl is okay," Akane shook her head, dabbing her eyes with a tissue from a box that was tucked into the crook of her arm. "I thought I killed her."

"Why were you cooking, sweetheart?" Her husband only asked with anguish, it was free of blame. "I would have made us dinner. I just needed a half hour to wrap up my work call."

"You do so much," Akane breathed in distress. "I wanted to make you something nice on your birthday."

"Oh, baby," Toma held his wife's face. He kissed her then and there.

Sakura lowered the woman's dress over her slightly extended belly. She began to clean up the station. She turned off the halo light and moved it from shining on Akane's stomach. She stepped away to update new patient records to give the couple some privacy. She typed her keys on her work laptop, which never left the walls of her clinic, she kept it locked in a safe when she was not using it, harder than necessary.

"Dr. Haruno?"

Sakura turned around at her name being called. She found both of them staring at her with gratitude. "Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. We're sorry for waking you."

Sakura waved off the sheepishness they housed. "It's good that you came. I'm glad I could be of help."

I'm glad I had enough time to put on real clothes before you got here.

Because answering the clinic door in her robe hardly seemed professional.

"Who would have thought Tani would have such a gem?" Akane brought a gentle hand to her belly. "Thank you, Dr. Haruno."

"Of course," Sakura smiled at them. "If you have any questions, my email and contact information is on this card," she held it out with both hands. Toma bowed his head before taking it. "And of course, there's the website." Sakura held out a bag. "Aloe vera," Sakura explained at the looks of confusion on their faces.

"Thank you," Toma was quick to reach for that too. "And payment?"

She saw the way his eyes dimmed slightly. "Anything you're comfortable with," Sakura held up her hands. "And it doesn't have to be today or even this week. Whenever you're ready."

The pair released a gasp of relief. "I left my wallet at home," Toma admitted with a chuckle. "I'll send over a check."

"Works for me." Sakura shook both of their hands. Toma helped his wife out of the chair. Sakura walked them to the door and grabbed the picture of the sonogram from the printer to hand them before she bid them farewell, locking it once it had closed. She sighed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she gazed upon the picture encased in glass on the wall. "Did I do the right thing?" She asked his impassive face, waiting for an answer—some guidance—on how to proceed.

There was a knock. Then again in rapid succession. Without thinking, Sakura turned first the lock and then the door handle. She pulled it toward herself.

"Did you forget some," the rest of her question died in her mouth at the reveal of not the face of either person in the couple but instead dark eyes and dark hair; a silver nose ring.

"You didn't check the camera," his monotone was not impressed in the slightest.

Sakura pressed her lips together when faced with the truth. She had not. The camera that was outside her clinic was the only one she had installed—well, Rihito installed it. It too was a compromise. She put her foot down when it came to access. She did not grant it to him as he asked. It was bad enough that he was loitering around.

"Dr. Haruno," he let out a sigh as he rubbed the spot between his brows. "In order for us to be successful we need to work with each other, not against."

The thin line was now bloodless but even then it did nothing to stop her nostrils from flaring when the scoff pushed out.

"Any more late-night visitors?" He asked in a manner that her anger snapping and seeping out of her harmlessly to pool at her feet. It was a little embarrassing if she spent more than half a second to consider.

"No," she shook her head. "Sorry for troubling you." She had to. She could not risk him attacking two civilians after she had woken up enough from the dead of sleep to understand that a "badly burned" woman who could not feel the baby moving anymore was arriving. She had been so turned around that she did not even advise them to call an ambulance. If Akane had even second-degree burns there was very little her clinic could do. It was not equipped for surgeries or injuries of that scale. Not yet at least.

The Nara seemed to be equal parts amused and exasperated. He was without his suit jacket and belt. His blue shirt was pulled out of his pants, and a couple of buttons at the top were undone revealing the start of his tattoos. He ran a hand through his wavy hair, making it frizz.

"Is there anything I can say that would change this for both of us?" She asked him yet again without hope of a resolution.

If you're here it means you're not working…you're not earning and that can't be good.

And that, for reasons she did not want to discuss, made her feel too close to guilt for any semblance of logic or comfort.

"Keeping you safe is important," Rihito stated matter-of-factly, stopping just short of sharing a knowing look with her. Maybe he would have if it was not so late.

This is next-level delusion. When is he going to give it up?

She scoffed, too tired to argue. "Wait here," she turned her back. "I'll get you some coffee."

"And some of those tea cakes?" Rihito asked her with hope, not that unlike a child. Innocent almost which was ridiculous because she could see his weapon fastened to his waistband.