Chapter 19

Deidara threw the last junk in the garbage can. There, done. But he wondered why Sasori hadn’t come back yet.

He left the ballroom and yawned. Whoa, he hadn’t realized he was this tired!

Deidara walked up the stairs. When he was halfway up, he suddenly heard a long bang. He looked up, surprised. Itachi appeared at the top of the stairs and stormed down, almost throwing Deidara off the stairs. He left the building as fast as possible.

“That was weird, yeah.” Deidara muttered. Then, he heard someone faintly scream.

“I hate you! Get off of me! Now!” Was that… Sakura?

A door opened and closed again, with the same loud bang. Now, Deidara could clearly recognise her voice.

“ITACHIIII!!!!”

“Sakura-chan!” Quickly, Deidara ran further up the stairs and turned on the hallway.

She sat on the floor, crying loudly. He kneeled down next to her.

“Calm down, Sakura-chan, yeah…” He said carefully. He almost died at the sight of her tears, but he pushed his feelings away.

When Sakura didn’t change a bit, Deidara slowly helped her up. “Just come with me, yeah, it’ll be alright, this way, yeah…”

They walked to an other part of the long hallway. Deidara stopped at a door with a brown eagle on it. He opened it and let her pass first.

She stepped into a garden like her room, only with some small changes. Here, it wasn’t day, but night. A full moon gave enough light to look around, but there were also hundreds of beautiful stars. She heard some grasshoppers between the long grass and she could see a couple of fireflies. There were some trees, but they were quite small and normal. And last, everywhere were eagles.

Small ones, big ones, pretty ones, ugly ones… Although what happened was awful, Sakura was able to forget it for some seconds and be amazed by Deidara’s room.

Deidara had a king-sized bed, just like Sakura, only his didn’t have curtains and it was dark blue instead of pink.

Deidara slowly guided her to his bed and pushed her down on it. He took a glass of water from the table next to his bed, kneeled down in front of her and handed it over to Sakura.

Her hands were shaking so much; she couldn’t even normally hold the glass. She lost her grip and it slipped, but before it could fall, Deidara supported her hands, just in time.

She looked up, her eyes still filled with tears. He smiled encouraging to her. Slowly, he helped her to bring the glass up to her dry lips.

She took a zip, much to big, so she burst out in coughing. Deidara placed the glass away and petted her on the back until she was calmed down.

“Could you please explain to me what happened, yeah?” He asked in a soft voice. Still stressed and shaking, Sakura told him the whole story.

“…Sasori-san… Did that… yeah?…” Deidara asked, his only visible eye as wide as possible from shock. Sakura nodded. “S- S- Sor- ry…” She managed to whisper. Really slow, he shook his head.

“It’s not your fault, yeah.” Deidara said, although he looked like he wanted to jump up and scream it do was all her fault.

“I- …err…” He started slowly. “If you don’t feel really safe if you’ll sleep alone now, you can sleep with me, yeah… No, not sleep with me! I meant that you’d stay in my room with only me, yeah! No!!! That’s not what I meant either, yeah!”

Sakura smiled, which made Deidara quiet. “Yes, I’d love to share a room with you, Deidara-san… Thank you so much.”

Deidara smiled a little too. “We… Do have to share my bed, yeah… I only have one, yeah.” “No problem, its for two persons right?” Sakura said, while looking at the bed. “And we’re friends, then there’s nothing wrong with a boy and a girl sharing a bed!”

‘I guess you still haven’t figured my feelings out, Sakura-chan, yeah…’ Deidara thought sad while he watched Sakura wander around in his room. ‘How many times are you going to repeat yourself, yeah?… You’re so much more than a friend… But than again… I guess you’ll never know…’

- - - - - -

Itachi didn’t know where he was going. He didn’t care. He just ran.

The wind stroked his face as he sprinted through the dark forest. The full moon lighted his path while he ran. He didn’t stop when a small stick, which was pointing out, marked a deep scratch on his cheek. His speed was almost fasted than sound.

After a while he stopped, tired as he was, taking a breath.

Itachi would never be able to get that shot out of his head. Of course he knew Sasori would have used something like that. But never in his life he thought he had to see them both like that, how she was enjoying it…

Why did he actually run away? He didn’t know. It was just an impulse. He had wanted to leave. Right there. Right then.

‘You ran because you wanted to be far away from that awful scene. It’s really normal to do in that kind of situation.’ A wise voice whispered in his ear.

Itachi decided to ignore it and turned around to go walk. He walked really slowly, since he was still tired from running as hard as he could.

While walking back, he thought about it again. He knew he had been stupid. After all, she was drunk. Itachi remembered Kisame being drunk, who had stepped towards Deidara and had said he never in his entire life had seen such a pretty girl like Deidara. Of course, Kisame had a black eye for weeks. But that’s what you do when you’re drunk. You do stupid things.

Itachi stopped from tiredness, just when he saw a cave.

He didn’t know how long he had been running. Maybe he was miles away from the headquarters.

‘I’ll go back tomorrow.’ He thought with a shrug, and headed towards the cave.

- - - - - -

Deidara couldn’t sleep.

Why? That’s an easy question. Because one hell of a kunoichi was sleeping next to him.

He was sweating everywhere and his heart was beating twice as fast. Their lack of clothes was the cause of the huge blush on his face. She only wore her underwear and he long trousers. Nothing more.

Sakura turned around in her sleep to face Deidara and both her arms slid around his upperarm.

His heart skipped a beat. Ohh, why did he have to love his best friend so much? Maybe he just needed to find himself a girlfriend or something.

“Hmm… Itachi-kun…” She moaned in her sleep, and her grip around his arm tightened. That was just great. She dreamed about Itachi while she held him?

‘I want to sleep, yeah…’ He thought, and sighed. ‘Hard world… Hard world indeed, yeah…’

- - - - - -

“Oy! Sasuke-teme!”

Sasuke ignored it and kept his eyes closed. “Sasuke-teme! I know you’re in there! … Argh!”

The sound of a window opening. Footsteps coming closer. Someone got on the mattress and started to jump on it, so Sasuke almost flew off.

He opened his eyes and saw Naruto hopping around on his bed.

“You’ve got three seconds to get off, Naruto.” He said with his coldest voice. Naruto got off Sasuke’s bed. “Kakashi-sensei wanted to talk with us.” He said. “Kakashi?” Sasuke asked. “Yeah! Get out of bed, sleepyhead, it’s already 11 am!” Naruto sat down on the edge of the window and grinned. Sasuke sighed deeply. “Whatever, dobe.” “I’m not a dobe!”

He slowly got out and walked to his closet. When he picked his clothes out, he glared at Naruto. “Do you mind?”

“What?” Said Naruto, not understanding. His eyes fell on the clothes in Sasuke’s hands. “Oh! Come to Ichiraku when you’re done.”

He jumped outside.

“What the hell does Kakashi want?” Muttered Sasuke while dressing.

- - - - - -

Sakura woke up and had to think for some moments where she actually was. Then she remembered.

She turned around, but Deidara wasn’t there. ‘Where is he?’ She wondered and quickly got out of bed. She dressed into her own Akatsuki dress plus cloak and left the room. ‘I’m lucky I don’t have a headache… I was so drunk last night… I hope it didn’t affect the baby…’

“Sakura-san?”

She turned around to see Kisame. “What?” She asked. “Where’s Itachi? I need to talk to him.” He said, while frowning.

Sakura stayed quiet as she looked at him. “… I don’t know.” She finally replied softly. “Oh.” Kisame sighed. “Well I guess I go look for him then. And, Deidara is waiting for you, he’s having breakfast now.” Without thanking, she walked down the stairs. ‘Itachi…’

Suddenly, at least fifteen shuriken where thrown at her and came to her in an amazing speed. Sakura quickly grabbed a kunai and stopped the ones she couldn’t dodge.

“Well that was good.” Sasori was standing at the end of the stairs, writing something down on a piece of paper. Immediately, Sakura was filled with anger.

She went down the stairs as loud as possible to show him she was not happy. He looked at her, interested. When she stood in front of him she placed the kunai against his throat. “What are you?” She said angry.

“Because he’s not the nicest guy in the world doesn’t mean-” Started Kisame, but Sakura cut him off. “No. He isn’t human and I know it. What are you, Sasori-san?”

Sasori smirked at her. “Medic shinobi indeed.” He said. “I’m a puppet.”

Sakura stared at him for a while before removing the weapon from his neck. She turned around and walked into the cafeteria.

“Be careful, Sasori-san.” Kisame said grinning. “She was able to break Itachi’s fingers. And since you couldn’t win from Itachi, I would be on my guard if I were you.” Sasori didn’t answer and went up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Sakura ordered a bowl of ramen and sat down next to Deidara. He looked kind of tired, but he smiled cheerful when she sat. “Morning, Sakura-chan, yeah.” “Are you tired?” She asked. He shook his head. “Hey, after you ate, Leader-sama wants me to check your strength, yeah.” He said, quickly changing the subject. She looked up. “My strength?”

While she was eating, he looked through the window. “Yeah. He knows about your inhuman strength, but he wants to know exactly how far it goes, yeah.” “Oh…”

She finished her bowl and stood up. “Lets go then.”

Deidara came up as well and they left the cafeteria. He opened the door, which led them outside.

It seemed the enormous house was in the middle of a huge forest. Curious, Sakura looked around, but saw nothing else but trees.

They walked some metres into the forest and came at an open spot.

“Sakura-chan, could you please kick at that tree, yeah?” Deidara asked, while nodding at a quite big tree. Sakura turned to face it and focused her chakra into her foot, and smashed it into the tree with great force. The tree shattered. Sakura couldn’t help but to grin.

“And the ground, yeah?”

She heard the amazement in Deidara’s voice. While gathering chakra in her hand now, she focused on the muddy ground and crushed her fist into it. The ground crumbled down and Deidara quickly jumped aside. (A/N: Like Sakura does in episode 223! I love those new episodes.)
”Trying to kill me?” A low voice said. Shocked, Sakura looked up. She knew that voice too well.

Itachi leaned against one of the trees, while eating an apple. His Sharingan were focused on the pink haired kunoichi.

Deidara disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving the two alone. Sakura didn’t know if she liked that or now.

“How’s Sasori-san?” Asked Itachi, and he took another bite of his apple, causing the juice to stream down his chin. But this question angered Sakura. “Itachi, you’re acting like a child!!!” She suddenly yelled. “You know as well as I do that I’m totally not interested in that baka Sasori, and I did stupid things and I’m sorry, but you don’t have to get all jealous and start acting like a toddler!”

Sakura was proud to see that Itachi was surprised. He raised his eyebrows and kept looking at her.

“I’ve apologised because I really needed to, but you have to do too because you’re doing as if you’re the asshole you used to be!!! And I know you’re different than that so act like it!!!” She wanted to go on, but saw he was smirking, so she closed her mouth, waiting.

Itachi walked up to her, while tossing his apple away. When he was in front of her, standing literally toe-to-toe, he laid his hands on her shoulders and bowed down.

“Gomen.” He whispered seductively in her ear.

Sakura couldn’t help but to blush. His cheek brushed against hers and his breathing on her ear gave her this familiar feeling.

Itachi removed his face from her ear and looked at her, but was still very close. The tips of their noses touched.

“…It’s…It’s ok…” Sakura said under her breath, unable to look at something else then his mysterious deep red eyes, which were so close. His right hand spilled from her shoulder down her arm and took her little hand.

“Forgiven and forgotten?” He asked. She nodded slightly, and he kissed her.

‘He tastes like apple.’ Inner Sakura said giggling.