Chapter Text
Sasuke felt the cautious glances. He noticed the breadth that passer-bys gave him while he walked. He heard the soft whispers of fellow shinobi asking if the one-armed man was indeed the Sasuke Uchiha, as if he might as well be the boogeyman.
He left the hospital as soon as he was able, unable to bear Sakura’s coddling a second longer than required after the loss of his arm, but Sasuke was only greeted by a Konoha that didn't know what to do with him. Kakashi regarded him with a cold distance, which Sasuke understood, but Sasuke also knew that if he tried to leave again, Naruto would drag him back.
So, instead, he spent his time observing the village that he no longer knew. His childhood home had survived the war unscathed, in the same state as he left it when he defected from the village, but other parts of the village had been destroyed during the war. Watching the repairs was mildly interesting, and he found a nice shade tree to sit under and read while doing so.
It felt like he was somehow being dishonest to his body, which had spent the past few years training nonstop, only now to lazily sit and rest. Then again, it felt dishonest to be alive after everything he had endured, and Sasuke didn’t know how to deal with that feeling either. He pushed both into a Pandora’s box in the corner of his mind where varying degrees of gloomy ideas lived.
Realizing he was lost in his mind again, rereading the same sentence over and over again but unable to retain any of the meaning, Sasuke shut the book he was reading abruptly. “Hmph.” He huffed, closing his eyes in irritation.
Sasuke set the book on his knees and ran his thumb over the embossed title, reading the characters by their raised outlines.. Master Ochi’s Sealing Techniques: Volume Two. It was an interesting albeit dry read, especially the second time, but Sasuke hadn’t exactly lingered at the library when he borrowed it. They hadn’t had a large selection of books on sealing techniques, and Sasuke had heard of Ochi before.
The moment he stepped foot inside the library, the Hyuuga librarian’s eyes followed him like a hawk, suspecting him of attempting to steal something. It forced Sasuke to be in and out without dawdling.
When he was with Orochimaru, the Uchiha had access to some of the best shinobi literature in the world-some of the content questionable. Now, he was borrowing books from a public library catching suspicion like he would try to cause trouble in a quiet empty building…
He used his teeth to grab his sleeve and pulled it up past his forearm to look at the ruined kunai seal on his remaining wrist. A thin fresh pink scar ran through the tattooed symbol breaking the seal and rendering it useless. Nothing in Ochi’s book explained how to repair a seal. It was easy enough to redraw seals on paper, but his was ink etched into his skin by one of Orochimaru’s cohorts. Sasuke let his head fall back against the tree behind him.
At least Sakura hadn’t bothered him today.
Sasuke placed the book in the grass beside him and looked out at the lively construction zone in front of him.
Several somewhat familiar figures scurried back and forth carrying beams of lumber to and fro.
“Lee! Slow down!” The sound came from a brunette woman working in the construction site. Sasuke knew her, but he didn’t know her. She was the-recently-deceased Neji Hyuuga’s former female teammate. It was all Sasuke knew her as.
The woman struggled to carry the back end of a heavy wooden beam as Lee hoisted the front up onto his shoulder. Rock Lee set off practically at a running speed, and the woman had no choice but to do the same or drop the beam on herself.
Sasuke watched Lee curiously. It wasn’t long ago that he had seen the unmistakable shinobi visiting Guy in the hospital. Out of everyone he went to school with, Lee looked exactly the same. Only now as an adult, the taijutsu user was sinew and bone, and his tight green jumpsuit did absolutely nothing to hide his impressive physique.
“Lee!” the brunette let out another yell as the pair set the lumber down beside a construction zone where others were working. Lee and his teammate shared a quick conversation before Lee pumped his fist in the air and sprinted off for more while the woman let out an exasperated sigh. She went the opposite direction.
A smile flashed across Sasuke’s face and then disappeared. No matter how long he watched them work, it was always the same silly display over and over again. It was impressive that she was able to keep up with him, but Sasuke could discern the thick muscles hidden under the flowy fabric of her pants. If Guy trained her, she wasn’t an average kunoichi.
Sasuke plucked a few blades of grass from under him and let them float back down to the ground.
When he looked up again his eyes quickly shut in irritation.
She was walking towards him.
The woman plopped down into the grass beside him unceremoniously, untying a colorful furoshiki to reveal her lunch. Sasuke tilted his head seeing the sudden bag, she hadn’t had it when she was walking up to him. “Hope you don’t mind me joining you!” - “My name is Tenten by the way, Sasuke.”
“Why are you talking to me?” It came out just as Sasuke intended, but it did not have the intended effect.
Instead of leaving, or getting upset, Tenten just shrugged and pursed her lips. “Well, I see you sitting here everyday watching us work.” She twisted her upper body towards him and smiled like she had caught him doing something embarrassing. The genuine grin split across her face and forced her large brown eyes to crinkle.
Sasuke felt his shoulders slump as he was disarmed by her happy expression.
“-and this spot is really shady.” Tenten held his gaze for a moment, waiting for a response and then turned her attention back to her lunchbox when he didn’t say anything.
The way she looked at him was different. It was a complete contrast from the longing way Sakura and Karin looked at him, wanting something he couldn’t give them; Tenten expected absolutely nothing from him-not even basic manners or polite kindness.
“I was just leaving,” Sasuke announced gathering his book; he wrongly assumed that she would leave when said he was, and he made no move to actually do so.
Tenten ignored him. “I don’t think we’ve ever talked before, so I figured I’d introduce myself!” She pulled the lid off of her lunch and revealed what she had packed. It was a simple onigiri set, and the sight made Sasuke’s stomach grumble in hunger, which Tenten clearly heard. “We went to the same academy, y’know. I was just in the class above you, with Lee and..”
The way she trailed off instead of saying Neji’s name wasn’t lost on Sasuke.
“Hn.” Truthfully, Sasuke hadn’t known the brunette’s name until she told him. He only knew her from her association with Neji. Sasuke had often wondered what it would be like to fight the Hyuuga prodigy when he was a genin, but now he’d never have the opportunity considering Neji was buried six feet deep in the local cemetery.
There was an awkward pause, then Tenten spoke again.
“Is Sakura going to bring you a lunchbox today?” Tenten’s question made Sasuke frown. Not only had he been watching her and Lee, it seemed like they had been watching him as well.
Part of him wanted to get up and walk away without answering, but he had nowhere to be, nothing to do, and no one to see. “I asked her to stop. I am more than capable of feeding myself,” Sasuke answered fully with his chest. However, today, he could have planned better, he had eaten absolutely nothing all day, and had nothing for lunch.
Tenten nodded, pulling an innocuous scroll out of her pocket. “Lee’s been so jealous,” she commented, and then summoned a lunch box that was identical to the one in front of her.
Sasuke’s eyes widened realizing there were at least fifty other seals written in the scroll; some he could recognize, and others were beyond his knowledge. “Lee told me that he won’t eat anything unless Sakura makes it for him…” Sasuke could hear the eyeroll in Tenten’s voice. “I think he’ll be hungry for a while.”
Sasuke couldn’t even remember the last time he saw Sakura interact with Lee. When they were genin, she had been outright rude towards him when he refused to take the hint that she didn’t like him.
Tenten blundered on straight ahead, carrying their conversation fully on her shoulders. “I can’t eat both of these, do you want one, Sasuke?” Tenten offered him the simple lunch, and Sasuke stared at it pensively for a moment.
He was hungry; onigiri were his favorite, and it had been ages since anyone other than Sakura offered him food, but Sasuke shook his head unsure of the implications of the item. “No.”
Tenten nodded and left the lunch in the grass beside her. She stuffed half an onigiri in her mouth, and gestured towards the book in his lap. Tenten swallowed quickly, putting a hand in front of her mouth for politeness. “Volume one has some of the best seals, if you can get the first edition.”
Sasuke blinked in confusion. “What?” He heard every word, but none of them made any sense.
“Master Ochi!” the brunette chirped. “He originally published volume one with all his personal seals.” Her eyes glimmered, and Tenten pushed the rest of the onigiri into her mouth, chewing it intently before swallowing. “He’s an absolute genius,” the brunette said. “Do you want to borrow mine?”
Tenten didn’t listen, and began to unwind her scroll rapidly looking for her book.
Sasuke’s mouth opened for a moment, and then he shrugged. “Sure.”
The library didn’t have volume one. However, that didn’t answer the glaringly obvious question that Sasuke had when she first approached him. Why was Tenten talking to him?
Sasuke’s dark eyes squinted in suspicion. What did she want in return? Usually he could read people-especially women-from a mile away, but here she was sitting beside him a complete enigma shoving rice into her mouth.
Tenten summoned the book with a puff of smoke and sat it in the grass beside Sasuke. “I have a lot of books if you want to borrow them sometime, Sasuke.” She offered, and Sasuke eyed the scroll wondering how many ‘a lot’ was.
She was being nice. kind. courteous.
“Tenten,” her name rolled off his tongue too smoothly for Sasuke’s liking, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “If you’re doing this because you feel sorr-” He started to string together a cutting sentence about how he didn’t need her pity, but something interrupted him before he got the chance.
There was a terrible shriek from across the grass at the construction zone, and Sasuke looked up to see Lee.
“Tenten! I have a splinter!” Lee’s belting voice made Tenten jump into action. She quickly finished the last of her lunch and sealed the remnants away before racing off to help Lee. Tenten gave Sasuke a short wave in farewell as she summoned a first aid kit.
“You’re so convenient, Tenten!” Lee’s compliment was met with over-the-top irritation from Tenten, and Sasuke turned his attention to the book and lunchbox she left in the grass beside him. His stomach ached from skipping lunch and breakfast, and the pale blue box was so tempting.
Sasuke watched Tenten and Lee for a moment, and then took the lunchbox and book with him as he went home.