Beaten Black and Pink
An AU Sasuke and Sakura Fanfiction
By Krabby Patties

Chapter 15: These Children Learn from Cigarette Burns, Fast Cars, Fast Women, and Cheap Drinks

That weekend it took me forever to fall asleep every night because I kept thinking about Sasuke. And when I did sleep all I did was dream about Sasuke. It was weird.

.ZOMG.

You know how when you’re pissed at a friend, but you don’t want to let them know because you don’t want to start drama so you just let it go and hope they won’t notice, but that friend knows you so well that they do notice and ask what’s wrong and you always answer, “Nothing”? I sort of fell victim to that Monday morning.

When Sasuke picked me up, I couldn’t look him in the eye. I had had a particularly embarrassing dream about myself and him that made me blush every time I thought about it. I knew Sasuke knew something was wrong even though I tried to pretend he wasn’t noticing. I didn’t speak to Sasuke until he asked me what was wrong.

“Nothing!” I replied. That wasn’t a surprise.

He narrowed his eyes at me and then returned his gaze to the road.

He touches her bare back with his fingertips. The feeling of his fingers blocks out the feeling of the prickly grass on her skin. The heat she feels where her skin touches his makes her feel like she is on fire.

“I love you,” he whispers for the fourth time over the sound of the birds and the bees in the meadow. He caresses her naked side.

“I love—

“—you, too.”

“What?” Sasuke was looking at me, an annoyed expression on his face.

My eyes shifted around but never looked at Sasuke. I blushed a dark red when I realized I had spoken aloud, especially in context of that dream. “S-sorry. I was just talking to myself.”

I needed to stop remembering that dream. It was extremely embarrassing and untrue. Sasuke and I were never going to have steamy sex in some random meadow. If it totally didn’t look ridiculous, I would have literally slapped some sense into myself.

“Sakura.” Sasuke sounded pissed. I glanced at him and he looked it, too. “Tell me what the hell is wrong with you.”

“It’s nothing. Really.”

“No, it’s not. Stop lying to me and tell me right now.”

“Sasuke-kun, you never tell me what you’re thinking or feeling when I ask, so why should I tell you?” I thought that was a pretty good argument.

He took unnecessarily sharp turns to get around a car that was waiting to take a left turn. “That has nothing to do with this.”

“Yes, it does! You’re not being fair at all!”

“I’m not being fair?! You’re yelling at me because I was just concerned!”

“I’m not yelling! You are!”

“No, I’m not!” He sounded like he was about to burst into flames.

“Yes, you are! And I don’t have to tell you anything that I don’t want to!”

“Then, neither do I.” He got me there, so I stayed silent.

He took such a quick right turn into the parking lot that I slammed into his shoulder. He swerved a little to the left, but then he evened the car out and pulled into his usual spot. We were both seething.

I noticed two heads pop out of one bush and three pop out of another. “Some girls are watching us,” I said trying to move my lips as little as possible.

“So what?”

“So, we need to stop looking pissed and look like we love each other.”

I turned to face him and he copied me. I smiled and his face became expressionless.

“Good,” he asked.

“I guess.”

He sighed a little. “I won’t be in school today, so you’ll need to get a ride from someone else or walk home.”

“Why not,” I asked. I was still angry with Sasuke so I didn’t want to feel it, but I was disappointed.

“I have an appointment.”

“What kind of appointment?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You couldn’t plan your appointment some time other than school?”

“No.”

“So, is it a really important appointment?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Is it a doctor’s appointment? Are you dying, Sasuke-kun?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the appointment for?”

“If I wanted to tell you all about my appointment, I would have already.”

My God… When Sasuke’s pissed, he’s really pissed. And it’s not the greatest feeling if you’re the one he’s pissed at.

“Get out, Sakura,” he said in a strained voice.

I glanced at the girls in the bushes. “Kiss me first.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at me.

“You need to kiss me goodbye.”

“No.” Jeez, he doesn’t need to be so blunt.

I sighed. “Just kiss me on the corner of my lips.”

We stared at each other for a moment. Then Sasuke pressed his lips to the corner of mine. He touched my cheek with his fingertips and I felt myself burn up. When he pulled away, I blinked for a couple moments and then touched the door handle.

“Bye,” I breathed, opening the door.

“Bye,” he replied and put the gear into reverse.

I watched him pull out and drive away and then I headed for the nearest door to the school.

.ZOMG.

At lunch, Naruto asked me where Sasuke was.

“I don’t know,” I said. “He had some sort of appointment.”

Kiba slammed his can of soda down on the table like the judge in a courtroom. “Are you kidding?! That’s mob lingo for: ‘I have to kill somebodeh’!”

I sighed.

“How could you let him go? You’re his girlfriend, Sakura.” Kiba pointed at me. “You’re supposed to have him under control. You’re supposed to know what he’s doing with his life.”

“What if he really just has a doctor’s appointment for, like, his annual physical?” I didn’t know why I was defending Sasuke.

“Then you should know that!” Naruto was on Kiba’s side apparently.

“So are you calling me a bad girlfriend?”

“No!” Naruto said.

“Yes!” Kiba said at the same time.

I gave Kiba a look. “Thanks.” I got up and threw my lunch away. “I’m sure Sasuke would love to hear about this when I call him later.”

I began to walk away, but Kiba stopped me, just like I wanted. “Wait! Are you gonna tell him I think you’re a bad girlfriend?”

I turned and grinned at him. “Yup.”

He jumped up. “No! He’ll kill me! I’m sorry!

I ignored him so he chased after me. “Sakura! Please! I’m sorry! Pleeease!”

.ZOMG.

After school, I had nothing else to do, so I went to the tree. I felt a little awkward and nervous as I walked across the grass lawn to the tree because I hadn’t been there in days. Naruto, Hinata, and Shino were already there. I didn’t expect Neji or Ino to be there and they weren’t.

“Hey, guys,” I greeted.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” Shino said.

I laughed nervously. “Yeah… I’ve been…busy.”

Naruto began hysterically laughing. “Yeah. Busy tutoring Sasuke in math ‘cause he’s stupid!”

I glared at him and he stopped laughing.

“A-are you planning o-on staying,” Hinata asked.

I turned to her. “Yeah, I guess. Why?”

Naruto just about leapt into the air. “We’re going to play Apples to Apples!”

I grinned. “Nice! I love that game.”

When Kiba arrived with the game and Chouji, Tenten, and Shikamaru following, we began. Apples to Apples is a game where you match nouns to an adjective. Each player gets seven red cards, the nouns, and then each player takes a turn flipping over a random green card, the adjectives. The other players choose one red card (which can be famous, people, places, or random objects) out of their hand that they think best matches the adjective and places it face down against the green card. The judge, the player who flipped the green card, chooses their favorite red card and whoever’s card that is, gets the green card. Whoever has the most green cards, wins. It’s wicked easy to play.

Kiba was the first judge. He picked the top card on the face down deck. “Firm,” he read and then continued to read the synonyms that were on the card, “Definite solid sturdy.”

Naruto and Kiba began chuckling together, the dirty scumbags.

I looked at my hand and placed Lindsay Lohan face down because I thought Kiba would think that was funny.

Kiba began collecting the red cards. “Do I have everyone’s cards?” Everyone nodded so he began reading the cards. “Patrick Swayze.” He chuckled a little and placed the card down in front of him on the grass. “My Appendix.” (The cards that say “My…” apply to the judge’s.) Kiba laughed. “Spork… What the hell?”

We all laughed. “What’s the description,” I asked.

“A fusion of fork and spoon. If they could add a knife, you’d have a knorkoon!”

We laughed again.

Kiba continued, “Lindsay Lohan, Belly Dancers—” Naruto stopped him and asked for the description. “Performers famed for their navel maneuvers.” Then he read the last card. “All-Nighters.” He held the card in the air, laughing. “Who’s is this?

“Mine!” Naruto grabbed the green Flimsy card and high-fived Kiba. We all picked another red card from the face down deck to keep up the seven cards you’re supposed to have at all times. Kiba put the red cards from that turn in a discard pile.

It was my turn. The green card I picked was, “Massive.”

Everyone laughed and I put that card back in the box. “No. We’re not using that one.” I pulled an illegal move and picked another green card. It was Macho: chauvinist cocky masculine. There was a little laughter and everyone chose their nouns.

I read the cards off. “Spooning.” I laughed. “That is not macho! Turkey Baster. An Octogenarian—” I threw that card down. “I don’t even care what the other cards are. Octogenarian wins.” It was Shino’s card.

“What’s an octogenarian,” Naruto asked.

I read, “A person who is between 80 and 90 years of age. They do not have 8 legs.”

.ZOMG.

I got home around four because our Apples to Apples game got pretty intense. Kiba won because he knew how to make every card dirty which in turn made them funny. Hinata announced that she wasn’t feeling very well so she went home early.

“Kill the lights
These children learn from cigarette burns, fast cars, fast women, and cheap drinks
It feels right
All these asphyxiated, self-medicated; take the white pill, you'll feel all right,” Naruto had sung to her.

We had given him strange looks.

“What?” he had said. “Can’t I sing a little 3OH!3?”

When I walked into the kitchen to get something to eat, my mom grabbed me. “Go upstairs and get ready,” she told me. I looked her over and noticed that she was wearing a skinny knee-length black skirt and a ruffled black and white polka-dotted blouse.

“For what,” I asked.

“For the dinner at your father’s office. Hurry up. We’re leaving at 5:15” She pushed me toward the exit of the kitchen.

I put on a nice outfit and did my hair and headed back downstairs. I was surprised to see that my little brother kept doing his hair like Sasuke’s. My stomach clenched when I thought about Sasuke and when I remembered how his fingers felt on my cheek.

When we arrived at the modeling agency, where my father worked, we got the pleasure of walking through the shooting area on the way to the banquet hall. The banquet hall was less “banquet hall” and more “function room.” Every year the annual dinner was held there and it was kind of like a dinner held in a church gym converted into an eating establishment by sticking tables and chairs in the room. In other words, it was, like…pseudo-fancy.

My mom loved watching the beautiful models spin and pose under the strict direction of the photographers and their agents. Most of the time these models were posing around the city, but some stuck around the agency. My father tried to get me to model a couple times and I did and hated it. I don’t care how much the photographers love my pink hair—never again.

A sharp voice caught my attention. “Come on! Just let me take a couple pictures of you!”

No, I wasn’t being asked, but Sasuke was. Or at least I thought it was Sasuke. He had the same spiky hair and figure. He stood the same way, too, like even if he did care what you were saying, it wasn’t important enough for him to stand like he cared. But when I called out to him, his head twitched a little and he stood more erect, but he didn’t turn.

“No,” the boy growled. He sounded like Sasuke and every other male his age.

I turned away and jogged a little to catch up with my mom and Daisuke. That guy was Sasuke. There was no doubt.

.ZOMG.

I walked away from Tenten toward my seat after the bell rang, ending our conversation. I slammed my books down beside Sasuke’s arm. We were in Vertebrate Anatomy.

Kimimaru-sensei placed a hand on my shoulder. “Please don’t do that again, Sakura.” He pointed at my books.

“Sorry—Sasuke-kun.” I spun away from the teacher and jabbed a finger at Sasuke. “What were you doing at the agency yesterday?” I had been holding in the question all day and I couldn’t hold it in any longer.

Sasuke didn’t even look up at me once the entire time I was there. “I was not at the agency yesterday,” he said slowly.

“Yes, you were.” I took my seat beside him.

Sasuke huffed and turned his body away from me.

“Sasuke-kun,” I said low because class had started, “I know you were at the agency. Don’t lie to me. I saw you.”

He turned to look at me now. “You couldn’t have seen me because I wasn’t at the agency yesterday.”

“Why can’t you just admit it? You’re a model, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a model.”

“Then you’re a yakuza?”

“No.” Sasuke death-glared me. I thought I would die.

“It’s okay to be a model. That’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

I could tell Sasuke was holding an outburst in.

“But it’s not okay to be in the mob. You—”

“If you two can’t keep it down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Kimimaru-sensei was standing over us, spinning his bone dagger threateningly.

“Gladly.” Sasuke picked up his books and the sweater hanging over the back of his chair like a whip and exited the classroom.

I didn’t know if I was supposed to follow him or not, but I figured since he was pissed off at me enough, I should just stay here. I put my head down and hoped that would make me a harder target for the class to stare at.

My phone vibrated and I saw a new text message from Tenten.

Wat happened

I texted her back.

I was trying to figure out if
Sasuke was a model or a yakuza.

After I sent the message, I wondered if Tenten even knew what I was talking about.

She sent:

Wat?!?! A model?! R you serioues?

I chuckled a little at the way she misspelled serious.

Yeah. And Sasuke and I have been
fighting a lot lately to tell you the
truth.

Uh oh thats not good

.ZOMG.

And it got worse.

Sasuke didn’t show up seventh period, Creative Writing. Tenten and Naruto kept bothering me, trying to figure out if I knew where Sasuke went after our little row the period before. (Naruto was there, too.)

I texted Sasuke, asking where he was, and he didn’t reply.

So after school, instead of heading straight for Sasuke’s car, I went to the tree. Tenten, Kiba, and Naruto were competing to see who could climb to top of the tree the fastest. It looked like fun so I took Hinata’s arm for a moment.

“Come on,” I said, grinning.

We started our climb. Shikamaru, Shino, and Chouji stayed on the ground and discussed some new video game that just came out.

Hinata and I stopped climbing not too far off the ground, just over seven or eight feet maybe. We looked up at the boys and Tenten, who had reached the farthest point they could climb. They waved and called down to us.

“Climb up here!” Tenten yelled at us. Hinata and I shook our heads, thinking she was ridiculous.

I looked to the ground when I heard Sasuke’s voice. “Have you seen my girlfriend?” He was asking the guys on the ground. My heart skipped a beat hearing him call me his girlfriend.

Chouji pointed up at us in the tree. “She’s up there.”

Sasuke looked up at me and raised a questioning eyebrow. Oh my God, he was beautiful.

I smiled at him. “Hey.”

He held out his arms. “Jump. I’ll catch you.”

I honestly considered it for a moment. I had no doubt Sasuke could catch me, but I climbed out of the tree instead. He put an arm around my shoulders and kissed the top of my head, and then led me down the hill to his car.

In the car, Sasuke told me that we were going to his house for tutoring because some guys were going to be fixing a pipe in his basement and he needed to be there. I got wicked excited. I had never been to his house or even near it. I didn’t even know where it was.

There was a three minute drive though the Uchiha grounds to get to Sasuke’s actual house. It looked exactly how I expected it would. It was enormous, probably even bigger inside. There were columns and ivy. It was a pretty gothic place and looked ancient. We had driven by many other houses, big and small, that the rest of the Uchiha family had probably lived in, and this building made the rest of the homes look like serf residences on a lord’s manor.

We parked outside of what I thought was a garage door. It was so similar to the rest of the wall on this side of the house I wouldn’t really tell. Sasuke pointed out a side door and told me that he had to check something out front.

I stepped in the house through the door that Sasuke had unlocked for me. The room I now stood in was small, some kind of sitting room I guessed. In the corner by the window was an antique Go board with two pillows set out on either side of it. I squatted down beside it. The board was covered in dust. I drew my finger across it and blinked at the dust collected on my fingertip.

I looked away and bit my lip. Poor Sasuke, he probably never touched this board. I mean, who would he play with? I just couldn’t fathom that type of loneliness.

I got up and headed into the next room. I heard my scream before I knew I was screaming, something I had read about but never experienced. There was a knife covered in dark red blood sitting carefully placed on the coffee table in this room and next to it was an actual severed hand. It was like a scene out of a movie.

A hand grabbed hold of my face, covering my mouth and muffling my scream. Another arm wrapped around my waist from behind me and brought me against the attacker’s chest. I started thrashing about.

“Shh,” Sasuke whispered in my ear. “It’s me. Just me.”

He let go of me and I spun around. “Sasuke-kun, how can you be so calm?!” I was screeching now. “You killed someone! I knew you were a yakuza, a murderer!” I pulled out my phone. “I have to call someone.” I looked back up at Sasuke. He had no expression on his face. “What am I still doing here?! I have to go. I need to get out of here.” I started rushing toward the doorway to the other room.

Sasuke stopped me and grabbed hold of my face. I screamed again and clawed at his hands. “Get off me!” He continued to gently say my name until I stopped screaming at him.

“Sakura,” he said, “calm down. I wasn’t me. I didn’t kill anyone.”

I pointed at the coffee table. “Then what’s that?! What is that?!”

“Oh, sorry. That’s mine.”

Sasuke let go of my face and I turned. Standing there in the doorway like he owned the place was Itachi, the man who killed his own family, whose face was plastered all over streetlight poles, who had a TV special all about him on the local news station. He was like an older Sasuke but with longer hair in a pony tail and painted black finger nails. I couldn’t stop staring at his eyes for some reason. Standing next to him was a man who looked like a fish, like a shark or something. He was holding a big hairy sword—at least I think it was a sword—that he propped up against a couch like it was an everyday item.

Itachi picked up the knife, one of those daggers that has teeth on one side, and started cleaning it on a hand towel you’d find in a bathroom.

He took a step toward Sasuke and I. Sasuke put an arm around my waist and held me in place just as I thought about leaving again.

“She’s pretty,” the shark guy said.

Itachi turned his head to the shark guy and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, little brother. Is she your girlfriend?”

Sasuke didn’t answer. The calm face he had moments before was now furious.

The shark guy scratched the side of his face—Are those gills? “I’m Kisame,” he said, looking at me. “And this is Itachi.” Who else could it have been?!

Itachi looked at me with those piercing eyes. “Nice to meet you—?”

“I’m not telling you my name,” I snapped. I regretted it instantly and drew closer to Sasuke. He responded by holding me tighter.

“What the fuck are you doing here,” Sasuke demanded. I had never seen Sasuke so angry. Ever.

“When I told you we were going to the Land of Water for a couple months”—Itachi stepped closer—“that was a little lie.”

“Yeah.” Kisame said, taking a seat on the couch. “This punk we do business with tried to get out of paying us. We had to find him and punish him. It wasn’t easy.”

I looked at the hand and Itachi moved into my line of sight. “Wondering if that’s his hand,” he asked me. “It’s not. That belongs to another guy who thought he could start shit with us and get away with it.”

Sasuke wasn’t a yakuza. These guys were.

I pushed away from Sasuke and took a step toward the doorway that led to the room with the Go board. “I need to get out. I need—”

When I turned, Itachi was there, holding the hand in my face like a toy. “Don’t leave on my account.”

I fainted into Sasuke’s arms.

A.N: Honestly, how many of you were dispointed that it wasn't Sasuke who killed anyone? I'm sorry... Really, I'm so excited to finally get this out. I planned this scene out such a long time in advance. Anyway...I'm not sure if I want Itachi to play a bigger role in this or not... We'll see. But no worries, there will not be a SasukexSakuraxItachi triangle.

So, I'm extremely sorry if that last scene was not intense enough. I was going to bring that scene to my Literary Club and ask for advice on it, but the Lit Club teacher wasn't in school the day Lit Club normally is (Tuesday). I decided you all deserved this chapter so I put it out instead of waiting another week. I'm still going to bring the scene to Lit Club and get advice. I'll let you all know next chapter if I decide to edit this one and make it better so you can go back and read it if you want.

I recently got into this thing where I love making a line or a couple lines of a song the chapter of a title, as you may have noticed above and as you will notice below. I went back and changed the titles of all the chapters to lines that I love from random songs. Except the names in the chapter drop down menu are the same because, to change them, I'd have to delete them and re-add them. If you recognize the names please review or whatever and tell me what song it came from. :) That would be awesomeness. No Googling!!!

I'm so sick and tired of all this snow. STOP SNOWING. Legit, they're making us go to school on a day we normally wouldn't because we've had too many snow days. I'm pissed.

SasuxSaku fluffiness next chapter!

Yeah... There was some other stuff that I was going to tell you...but I forget. It probably wasn't important anyway. (It never is.)

Thumbing through the pages of my fantasies,
ЖЯдβБΨ ۹Ǻ†ŧỊ€ی

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and its characters or plot lines. Naruto is copyrighted 1999 by Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter 15 Preview:

Can You Feel My Trigger Hand, I'm Moving Further Down Your Back

He held out an arm without moving any other part of his body. “Come back to bed. You were warm.”

My stomach did a somersault. I knew it was late and I should be interrogating Sasuke about this whole situation, but how could I say no to that? How could anyone say no to that?

I walked to the other side of the bed and climbed back in. As soon as Sasuke felt me, he gripped the back of my shirt and pulled me toward him. Then he hugged me tightly, but comfortably, with that arm. I heard (and felt) him sigh deeply. I hackin’ loved Sleepy Sasuke.