[Tanzaku Town]
Sukuna had assumed, without really thinking much about it, that he'd end up sharing a room with Kizashi while Sakura and Mebuki took the other. It made sense. It was normal.
That's what people do when they have young teenage children in their family. Isn't it?
Apparently not for the Haruno household.
By the time either of them realized what was going on, their parents had already claimed one room outright, bags dropped, door closed rather firmly at that, leaving the two of them standing in the hallway with the second key and no other option left to argue about.
"What in the world are they thinking…" Sakura muttered, arms crossed, staring at the door like it had personally wronged her. "Is this how responsible adults act?"
"I don't know whether they trust their children too much…" Sukuna said, already too tired to care one way or the other. "Or think we are too naive to know how babies are made…"
Sakura's face turned crimson in that instant. She lightly punched his shoulder while absolutely refusing to look at him.
"You baka, don't say that. This is not the time for joking." she shouted, her heart thumping internally a million miles a minute.
"Oh, just shut it and deal with it, would you? It's not like this is the first time we're sharing a room." Sukuna said offhandedly, though there was a slight teasing tone in there somewhere which made Sakura even redder.
The last time they had to share a room, it was in their house, and it was much different. It was before…
Before they kissed, and he told her how much he liked her flavor.
Sakura unconsciously licked her own lips as if she could still taste his. And her body started to feel weird again.
'Kami, it's been a month… why hasn't he kissed me yet?' She looked away while one hand rubbed the back of her neck and the other dug harder against her thigh to keep her growing anxiety and arousal down.
Sakura didn't show it, but she was having a meltdown internally after she drew his blood during one of their kisses last time and he ran away from her.
That was almost a month ago. After that, it was nothing. He never came to her room or tried to kiss her again. Didn't even pull his usual pranks either.
Though both of them had been extremely busy, to the point they hardly had time to even see each other outside the shared mealtimes they had.
Both had their own training to look after, and then there was him spending time with that Uchiha bitch…
'Did he find me weird?' She felt like her heart was twisting internally. If he really found her weird, then what would she do?
Even she wasn't certain what had come over her to bite his lip and suck on it. It was as if her body had simply done it, wanting to know how it felt… how it tasted.
Her lips pressed against each other tightly as her dodgy eyes looked anywhere but at him.
"Oi… you okay?"
"Yeah… yeah. I'm fine." Sakura was practically dragged out of her dazed state when she saw him waving his hand in front of her.
Sukuna just blinked. Seeing the girl's silence and uncomfortable posture, he thought perhaps she was genuinely uncomfortable sharing a room this time around.
'Maybe she thinks I'll try to do something after what happened a month ago…' He couldn't help but sigh.
He had made sure she understood he wouldn't do anything more than kiss her right now, but he guessed the message hadn't sunk in. Not that he blamed her. His own control had slipped the last time she bit him.
Kami knows what took over him. He had felt the kind of primal urge to take her right then that even he himself was a bit hesitant to go near her until he was certain he could control himself.
However, seeing the usually noisy and bold girl silent and self-conscious, he felt a bit guilty.
'Well, kunoichi or not, sister or not, she is still a girl. It might be nothing for me, but for her it could be a big deal.'
"Listen… you don't have to share the room with me, you know. I got other places to spend the night. You can have the room." he finally stated, not being able to bear her silence anymore.
"Wait… why?"
Her sudden reaction even made Sukuna confused. Wasn't she hesitating to share a room with him a minute ago?
"I mean, you're a growing girl. It only makes sense that you get your privacy. I don't wanna make you uncomfortable or anything." He shrugged, already halfway ready to teleport himself out of there. Perhaps he could spend the night in his Kamui dimension. It had been a long time since he did that.
However, of all the reactions he was expecting, he wasn't expecting her eyes to tear up all of a sudden.
???
Before he could so much as ask what had brought on the waterworks, the girl had already turned her head and dashed inside the room like a launched kunai, impossible to stop midway.
'What the hell did I do now?'
'For Kami's sake, I was trying to be considerate of her feelings for once…' he grumbled to himself. He was too tired for this shit today. However, he still ended up following her inside.
His whole body seemed to ache in ways he hadn't fully registered until he stopped moving—teleporting a tailed beast out of the village, fighting it into nonexistence, then spending the rest of the day cutting through enemy shinobi across half of Konoha had a way of catching up all at once the moment there was finally nothing left to fight.
He intentionally withheld himself from using RCT to get used to this fatigue and make his resilience stronger, but perhaps he was going to need a dose of Reverse Cursed Technique after this after all.
As he entered the room, he found the room itself was pretty clean. At least it was good to know that he was getting what he was paying for, though the single king-sized bed in the middle was a problem.
The bed and the girl currently lying face-planted in those soft cushions, both.
"Sakura…"
Nothing…
"Oi… what is this about? Talk to me, come on."
He slowly walked up to the girl and sat beside her, but there was no response.
Now, he highly doubted it, but still, for his own peace of mind, he opened his Sharingan to check whether there was any foreign chakra in her system, something like genjutsu or anything.
Nothing…
He almost felt disappointed at this because if it was something as simple as genjutsu, it would have been easier to solve. But now it meant that he had to coax the answer out of her.
He poked her side, exactly where she was ticklish. Something you seemed to know when you spent a good chunk of your life with someone.
"You know what… if it's about the house or what happened today, you really don't have to worry. I got enough money to buy us another few of those houses if you want, and as far as the invasion was concerned, I had everything under control. So, if that's what's worrying you, don't. I have everything handled…"
She just planted her face into the cushion even deeper and turned away from him.
'Now what do I do?' He sighed. This was the most troublesome part about having little sisters, or dealing with girls in general. Figuring out why they were upset before even trying to make them not so upset.
He tried everything he could think of until he decided that words were never his strong suit to begin with.
Before even Sakura knew it, she felt two strong arms wrap around her waist and then pull her up no matter how much she struggled to stay put.
The next second she found herself in the warm embrace which cocooned her completely… her back was pressed against his strong chest and while the cushion was still tightly in her grasp, shielding her front and more importantly her face, the boy simply embraced all of her, including the pillow, in one go.
"W-what are you doing? Let me go." she stuttered, though even she had to admit she didn't want him to let go. It was warm and comfortable being embraced by this idiot like this.
This time it was his turn not to respond. If anything, he only tightened his grip ever so slightly.
"Let me go…" Sakura said again, this time with a bit more force, only to get no answer.
She pursed her lips, her will to resist loosening against his warmth.
"Why…" she finally asked.
"Why what?" And surprisingly enough, as if instinct told him, Sukuna knew that she would finally talk now.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked with a louder tone than earlier.
"Believe me, darling little sister, I'm currently asking myself the same question. I'm so tired that I could drop dead the next second, and yet here I am coaxing your pretty little ass instead of getting my beauty sleep…" he said and slowly rested his chin on top of her head.
"'Cause I doubt I'll get any sleep if I let you cry yourself to bed… so you see, if for anything, it's for my own personal health I'm doing this." he replied with almost a scoff, which even Sakura couldn't help but smile at too.
"So, would you mind telling me who made you cry…"
"You…" she murmured under her breath. However, he caught that very clearly.
"Me!"
"Nonsense. I have been trying for years. If I had succeeded, there wouldn't have been a need for an invasion. I personally would have lit our house on fire."
"Hehe…" She really couldn't keep it together this time. A few chuckles left her mouth ultimately.
"Oh, laughing, are we…?"
"You think I'm not capable of doing it, do you?"
"Hahah…"
The heavy feeling Sakura had been holding onto in her chest finally felt a bit lighter.
Sukuna didn't ask once the giggling died down and both went back to silence, though this one was much more comfortable than the silence from a minute ago.
"So… will I know what this was all about, or do I need to crack a few more jokes I borrowed from Dad?"
Sakura seemed to smile at that again, but that smile didn't last very long. Her lips pursed tightly once again, and Sukuna could practically feel her shoulders tense.
Sukuna sighed once again. Kami knows what's going on in her mind.
With a little flare of irritation, he grabbed the pillow she was holding onto so dearly as if her life depended on it and threw it away before she could even see his hands move.
Losing the thing shielding her face so far, she almost felt vulnerable. She tried to grab it back, but no can do. Sukuna forcefully yanked the girl back and turned her around so she could face him now, and not the other way around.
Sakura let out a gasp as he then went on and dropped her right onto his lap, and before the girl could even try to push him back, his hands snaked back to her lower back and pulled her in.
Now, suddenly, Sakura found herself sitting right on top of his lap, her legs spread wide, locked around his back, both of their chests pressed against each other and their faces close enough that she couldn't even stop him if he decided to kiss her.
Sakura's toes turned inward at the provocative position, and if that wasn't enough, the idiot was pulling her even closer. She felt something warm down there.
A wave of heat spread all over her body as if an electric current had shot from down there all the way to her head.
"Y-you idiot. What are you doing? Let me go." Completely flustered and feeling the growing heat between her legs, the girl went ballistic red at an atomic level in an instant.
She struggled, but he never let go. His hold was iron-tight.
"Are you finally regretting kissing me?"
That question felt like he had punched her right in the gut. It came out of nowhere and left her completely baffled.
She regretted kissing him?
Isn't that the other way around? Isn't he the one who had been ignoring her?
Not to mention how he said it.
No usual teasing tone or bravado. If anything, his voice was soft, so soft that for a second she felt he would crack if she so much as tried to push against him.
Her eyes, which had been looking everywhere but his face, now had to turn toward him. What she saw almost hurt.
One good look and she could tell that he really was tired. His usual sharp red eyes looked almost on the verge of giving up.
He was still wearing the clothes from earlier. Neither of them had had any time to change.
However, while hers were only torn and dirty,
His were bloodied.
Whether it was his blood or someone else's, she would never find out, a part of his medical jutsu mastery which she both loved and hated at the same time.
Her eyes then went from his eyes to his lips. There was something almost magnetic about them. A few inches, that was all it would take to have them once again.
And the earlier heat and suffocating desire building for the past month once again came back with a vengeance.
Sakura gulped, her hands slowly tightening on his jacket.
"Sakura…"
His voice jolted her out of her thoughts, and her eyes snapped back to his.
He waited… most likely for her response, but Sakura was in no condition to reply immediately. Her mind was lagging behind. She even struggled to recall what he had just asked that had paused her so drastically. Curse her love-struck brain and his lips.
Why were they so distracting all of a sudden? was her question.
When Sukuna got no response, as he had been expecting, only one completely flustered girl who kept shifting her gaze from his eyes to his lips and then back to his eyes again, he frowned.
Now his patience was wearing thin.
"I see…" He sighed and closed his eyes.
Sakura blinked. Suddenly that brief loop between his eyes and his lips she had found herself trapped in was broken.
She was expecting another question, perhaps him repeating himself or explaining what exactly he 'saw' in her utterly confused and desperate self.
What she wasn't expecting was a gentle push from him, and the next second the warmth was gone. She was back on the soft yet cold bed again as he pulled himself back just a little.
She didn't like that.
"I won't try to kiss you or flirt with you again…"
'Wait, what?'
"I'm really sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable. Please forgive me."
Now finally panic settled inside her, and apparently this was the moment when she recalled what he had actually asked earlier.
'No, no, no, no… wait.'
Just as she was about to reach out, he vanished from his place. Her hands landed on nothing but air. He was gone.
Despair clouded her mind. Tears shimmered in her eyes, almost threatening to break out.
She had been too distracted to react to him when he needed a firm answer, and now he was gone.
xXx
A/N : Ah... the drama. Not my strong suit but here it is anyways. Actually went I sat to write this, it ended up becoming too big for a single chapter so had to cut part of this entire scene to for the next chapter.
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