Secondhand Serenade

Lost

A.N. Welcome back to chapter two! For those of you wondering, no I don’t really know where this story is going either. I’m just writing as it comes to me, so I suppose it’s impossible for me to spoil the story for anyone at least?

This chapter is dedicated to my Room-mate. May this too invoke a great emotional response from you.

So hold on to your words ‘cause talk is cheap, and remember me tonight, when you’re asleep- Secondhand Serenade (“Fall for You”)

Sakura wasn’t sure how long she slept. It may have been only hours, it may have been a great many days. All she knew was the sheets were getting gross. She was getting gross. Still, this didn’t seem like a plausible enough excuse to get out of bed, so she stayed, rolling over until the top of the blanket became the bottom and she could stay a little longer.

It was quiet in her apartment, quiet enough for her to hear the sound of her own breathing. She imagined, for one wild moment, that she could hear her own heartbeat. Which made her think of the last time she saw Naruto, which made her cry; which made her sleepy again and so the cycle continued.

A majority of her time was spent dreaming. Dreaming of the past, of the different ways she wished she had behaved. Of the ways things should have ended.

She dreamed that Naruto and Sasuke had come home, both alive, both mainly unscathed. She dreamed she had gone running to them, embracing Naruto tightly so that he laughed- a deep rumble that she felt in her heart; before turning to Sasuke and punching him squarely in the jaw. She dreamed that he looked at her, shocked but with a degree of respect while she berated him for putting them all through hell. That they all sat around talking and laughing and reminiscing and just being. Of course by that point Sai ran through her dream with an ink brush and painted tutu’s on everyone and they broke out into a ballet.

There came knocking at her door only once; then the door was immediately decimated; flying in a thousand splinters across her tiny apartment. Even sealing scrolls, it seemed, were not enough to deter Kyuubi.

And it was Kyuubi she was facing down right now, no doubt in her mind. even though the face staring back at her was Naruto's; the stance was unnaturally aggressive- his eyes a shining ruby even in the dark.
Sakura he growled at her, it's all your fault Sakura.

She blinked, pulling the blanket tight around her in a thin attempt at a shield. "N-naruto, what do you mean?" She asked, even as her heart thumped unevenly in her chest.

He flexed his hand; more claws than fingers and chuckled darkly. Don't play stupid. Everything is your fault. He advanced on her-red hot chakra seeping through It's your fault I wasted so much of my time chasing after someone who didn't give a damn about us. It's your fault I'm still a gennin. It's your fault Sasuke is dead now, your fault there's blood on my hands.

No, she wanted to beg, no it’s not my fault. But in the core of her heart she knew what he said was true. She had used Naruto and his obsessive nature to keep promises; that desire of his to be useful; for her own gain. To bring back a childhood crush who all but fled from her affection.

Naruto stalked forward, a slow animalistic gait to his step. Poor little Sakura just wanted her Sasuke back. Closer now, close enough for her to feel the individual puffs from his breath. Poor little Sakura who cried ‘save me’ so very often. What a laughable excuse of a shinobi, he was leaning over her bed now, tracing one clawed digit against her check, splitting the skin there so thoroughly she barely felt it. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t end your life and save a whole mess of trouble?

Sakura’s lip trembled and her breath came in ragged gasps. She could find no saving grace in this instance; not with those eyes- once such a pure blue now raw and bloody staring at her. Not with that poker hot hand pressing harder and harder against her neck, this was it: something that should have happened years ago before she went bumbling through life.

Sakura bolted out of bed; sweat dripping down her back and face. She scrambled to free herself from the blanket, still managing to stumble when one foot refused to cooperate, and she went careening into the bathroom doubling over the toilet to heave emptily into the porcelain basin.

A dream. A nightmare really, but the important fact was it hadn’t been real. A figment of her imagination; produced by her subconscious guilt over this entire damnable situation. She shivered as a vivid memory from her sleep came back to her, the feel of Naruto’s hand pressing just so against her pulse; the intent to kill painfully clear on his face.

Not real not real not real She chanted to herself, trying to steady her movements. She wasn’t puking because there was nothing in her system to puke; but still the shudders racked her body, seemingly determined to get something from this horrid experience.

Finally, when she could breathe again and her heart had stopped hammering against her chest, she sat back; resting the side of her face against the cool basin and pondered. Was that why Naruto was avoiding her? Because he was so beyond angry with her and he was afraid he would hurt her, something that he may come to later regret?

She wouldn’t regret it, that’s for sure. Beyond anything else, she knew she would deserve whatever way her blonde companion chose to lash out at her.

After this incident, sleep was out of the question. She had no idea how much longer she had in this imposed exile; but nothing was going to be accomplished this way.

So she changed, moving in quick jerky movements; she was weak from hunger or fatigue it was hard to tell; but at least it gave her an idea of how long she had been here. Sakura dressed quickly, throwing on the first things she could find, and raced to the door- tearing hastily through her own scrolls.

What they needed, she realized, was not this isolation, but confrontation. Everything be damned, they’d either get through this or go their separate ways.

Sakura tried very hard to ignore the twinge her heart gave at that last thought. She’d deal with it when it happened.

The outside world was dark; a smudge of pale buttery light off in the eastern horizon; and quiet, mist clung to the air making it slightly chilly. As the cold nipped at her arms and legs Sakura realized belatedly that she had grabbed shorts and a tank. Too concerned with her sudden mission she lurched forward, struggling to find her stride for longer than was acceptable.

When this is all over with, no matter what happens I’m going to run three laps around Konoha every morning.

By the time she reached Naruto’s flat she was considerably winded and far shakier than she ever had the right to be. Still, the important thing was that she had reached her destination. She hit the door with both fists; pounding loudly until her hands were raw and sore.

Nobody answered.

Suddenly feeling considerably less confident in her decision than she had been half an hour ago, Sakura slunk around to climb the wall over to his tiny balcony. Now half the sky was alight with the barest hints of pinks. The balcony, which was stretching the term liberally, looked directly into Naruto’s room; sat-in fact- over his bed. So it was with a heavy heart that Sakura peered inside the grimy window.

The room was dark, but looked recently visited if the wadded blanket was anything to go by. This thought renewed Sakura’s hope, only slightly. If the bed had been slept in it just meant he had gotten up earlier than her. She’d go back around and wait for him at his doorway.

When she awoke this time everything looked the same yet somehow different. The colors of the sky were familiar; more pinks and mauves than before and definitely in the wrong position in the sky to still be day break. Sakura stretched, feeling her muscles kink up from sleeping hunched over in a doorway all day.

There was a sandaled foot directly in her line of sight. She followed it up the leg, meeting an annoyingly familiar uniform. Iruka-sensei was crouched over, smiling at her in a sad way. “He’s not here,” said the man quietly.

By that point Sakura was sure she had cried more through this one isolated incident than in her entire childhood.

It was awkward to be comforted by her old academy sensei; and obviously, he felt the same way as he hesitantly rubbed her shoulder in what he assumed to be a soothing manner. “There’s alarms all over this place, so that if he comes home we’ll know it.” Iruka-sensei confided once she had quieted down again.

Sakura did not reply; she did not meet the kind hearted man’s gaze even as she felt like it was burning a hole in her soul. She silently declined his offer of dinner and nodded when he asked if she was all right. Ever the gentleman; Iruka-sensei escorted her back to her own apartment.

“Sakura, I may not be your first choice of a confidant, and I know you’ve been out of the academy for several years,” he chuckled; a fond noise, “but I still consider you one of my students and if you ever need to talk I’m more than happy to listen.”

She offered a weak smile in response, nodding her thanks, and closed herself into her own personal prison once again.

His shining kindness was too much to handle when she only wanted to be alone in the dark.

It was unhealthy, she noted from a distant clinical point of view, how much she was sleeping. But that little excursion of hers followed by the aching disappointment had sapped her of any energy she had stored. So she changed the sheets sluggishly before crawling back into bed.

She did not dream this time.

Some corner of her mind accepted the fact that this time when the door burst open, it was for real. She made no move from her current position; tangled as she was in the sheets with her face buried in her pillow. It was probably Tsunade anyhow, here to tell her two weeks had lapsed and come hell or high water she wasn’t to continue whining this way. This thought did not encourage her to pull herself out of bed.

What a shock when the voice that greeted her turned out to be, of all people, Ino.

“Ech. Forehead, this is pathetic, even by your standards,” the blonde tried to sound snippy but seemed to be having problems masking the naked concern for her friend.

There was a shift, a slight weight on the very edge of her bed and Sakura realized it was far too late to run. “You know, the grunge look is out. And it never really suited you anyway.”

Go away, Sakura thought angrily at her; still lacking any proper motivation to speak.

Then someone, who had yet to make their presence known, turn Sakura’s shower on. Full blast from the noise of it all.

Ino was still talking, Sakura had to strain to focus on her long enough to catch anything the blonde was saying. Her head swam with the effort of it all.

“-nd so those are your options,” Ino stated matter-of-factly.

Uh,oh. Sakura blinked, staring hard at Ino and racking her brain for the missing information. Finding nothing she muttered a dull “wha?”, while trying to remember how to prop herself up on her elbows.

Only now Ino is frowning at her the way a mother frowns at a sick child. She chewed her bottom lip thoughtfully, eying Sakura in a manner that made the other girl flinch. Then, seemingly coming to a decision she felt unnecessary to voice aloud, Ino nodded her head. “Right then, Chouji?”

Chouji came ambling out of Sakura’s bathroom, grinning widely. “No prob.” He cracked his knuckles, a rather ominous motion as far as Sakura was concerned, before stalking over to her bed. “I’d say I’m sorry about this, except I’m not.” Then he scooped her up without so much as a grunt, carrying her like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder and into the bathroom.

Her tiny excuse of a bathroom was already warm and full of steam. A handful of candles had been lit and placed around the sink, and from the smell they were scented. Cherry blossom. Great. Chouji made no showy pre-amble, nor gave any warnings. He merely stuck Sakura behind the shower curtain, clothes and all.

“Ino says not to make her come in here, she doesn’t scrub other people’s backs nicely.” There was a smile in his voice as he backed out of the room, telling Sakura to call when she was done and there would be clean clothes provided.

She would never admit it aloud, especially not to the two schemers in the other room, but that hot water felt damn good at that moment. Since she was already wet, there was no real point in delaying the inevitable. So Sakura stripped, ringing out her soaking pajamas as well as possible before sitting them on the counter and turning to the matter of shampoo.

Cherry Blossom. Again. Great.

She had been in there, possibly thirty minutes (and smelling thoroughly like one giant flower) when Ino began to get impatient. “Come on Forehead! You better not be trying to drown yourself in there!”

Feeling better than she had in weeks already, Sakura couldn’t help but bite back. “What’s the matter Pig, been so long since you were with a man that now you’re trying to sneak a peek at lil’ old me?” She bit back a vicious laugh as the incessant knocking on the door quieted.

Clothing was provided, though it was hardly anything Sakura would pick for herself. “Hey Ino… I think there’s some kind of mistake, these aren’t mine.” The shirt was a deep forest green with silver stitching creating a complicated leaf motif; it was snug- made out of some silky material with a high collar. The slacks weren’t much better; black and made out of the same material and baggy on her slight frame. Ino had pulled a pair of matching shoes (closed toe, flats the same shade of forest as the top) out of who only knew where and the entire ensemble was making Sakura nervous.
There was a long pause on the other side of the door, “It’s a gift!” Before Ino burst in, her arms over flowing with make ups and things that, at first glance looked like torture devices, but only turned out to be flat irons of varying widths.

The whole ordeal was over before Sakura had even began to take any of it in. Suddenly her hair was stylized, her face painted and she felt twelve again. “Okay enough, what is all of this about?”

Neither party answered her, instead Ino dove down quickly while Chouji grabbed both of Sakura’s hands. There was the sudden sensation of cold metal on her exposed ankles and wrists and she was over Chouji’s shoulder again.

Shackles, they put shackles on me, she thought dazedly; trying to focus over the jarring steps Chouji was taking.

Ino was babbling about something again, flitting around. “This is for your own good you know! You’re probably going to be thoroughly pissed at me, but in a few days we’ll all sit back and laugh and laugh.”

It was only then that Sakura realized the true extent of the situation. Those shackles were chakra inhibitors, the same kind they used in Nin prisons. She was being kidnapped. Sadly no amount of screaming or kicking did any good, at one point Chouji became annoyed with her theatrics and dropped her to dangle by her knees from his arm until she agreed to go quietly.

They finally came to a stop at a small, upscale restaurant in the heart of Konoha. It was a traditional building, with rice paper doors and floors that had never so much as heard the word carpeting. The host, or manager, or maitre-de; whatever he was; was apparently expecting them as he smiled benignly at Ino and Chouji.

“Everything is ready young sirs,” he said with a slight bow, “Our other guest is already in the business room, patiently waiting.”

Sakura shot Ino an evil look, hoping the blonde could feel her malice. It worked, if the way Ino fidgeted was anything to go by. “Thank you sir, we’ll just drop this one off then!”

Moving again, only this time through poorly lit hallways. Sakura watched, slightly in awe, as the design of the building slowly shifted from the antique look of the opening to a more modern look; including several electric lamps and eventually even sturdy looking oak doors.

It was one of those heavy doors Chouji finally pushed open, sitting Sakura down gently on an oversized pillow. Chouji and his accomplice backed out quickly, grinning the entire time. “You two play nicely now, we’ll be back for you in the morning!” Before swinging the door shut with an ominous thud.

Sakura turned slowly, holding her breath against the sudden flaring pain in her chest. Before she had even made it all the way around she knew what she would find.

There, sitting in a chair directly across the way from her was Naruto.

A.N. this chapter ended with roughly 3,000 words. I know this probably doesn’t seem like a whole lot, but it’s actually about a page and a half more than I normally write in a chapter. Unfortuanly, this isn’t even where I originally wanted to end the chapter, so if it feels stilted I apologize. Chapter three is already well under way and should be up within a few weeks.