Chapter Text
Sakura woke early the next morning and knew it would be a good day. She reapplied her Transformation Jutsu using all of the hand seals to ensure it was as perfect as could be. She grabbed her bag, checking that it had a notebook and some pencils. She poured a few glasses of water for Kakashi so that he would have fluids throughout the day without having to go and retrieve them himself. Then she smacked her cheeks once to psych herself up before heading for the door.
She paused at the threshold, feeling naked in her civilian clothing and with only the barest hints of a Transformation to disguise herself. She wasn’t bringing her hitai-ate with her, nor anything else that might tip her off as being a foreign ninja in an enemy city.
And yet.
The idea of going out without some kind of weapon, even just a single kunai or shuriken, made her fingers clench and her jaw tighten. Her stomach did a weird flip every time she considered walking out the door without some way to defend herself.
None of her jutsu were combat jutsu and she had no illusions that her taijutsu would be enough to defend herself against even an adult civilian. Taketa had been one thing; he was her age and cocksure. Against an adult with a weapon and a real fear of ninja and willingness to kill? She didn’t trust her chances without a weapon of her own.
Surely Kakashi would understand if she hid one at the bottom of her bag?
She scurried back to her packs, pulled a single kunai out and slid it beneath her other items in her bag. Even though it would be inaccessible, at least it was there. When she stepped out of their room and made her way into city, she felt light as a feather.
She wandered for a little while, getting a feel for the city itself. It was bright and early, the sun having only recently crested the horizon. It was strange to her how the city felt both so similar and so different at the same time.
The clothing that everyone wore was just slightly off. The accent was slight, but as it fell into a low hum of background chatter those small differences grated at her ears. The buildings were all just a little bit different, though as Sakura looked closer and closer she couldn’t put her finger on why.
Yet everywhere she looked, she saw people. Walking, shopping, speaking, laughing, living. Just regular people, living their lives the same as any of the civilians in Konoha or any of the other Land of Fire towns she’d seen before.
She stopped at a cart and grabbed some fruit for a breakfast while she continued her walk to get comfortable with the layout of the city. She told herself it was important to know all of her potential escape routes if she was uncovered as a spy. She ignored the tiny voice inside that shouted and it’s been a long time since we’ve been shopping, cha!
She didn’t buy anything, but window shopping was still nice.
Eventually when she felt she had a solid mental map of the city itself, she moved back towards the building Kakashi had indicated was going to be their target. It was the main government building in city, kind of like their version of the Hokage’s Tower.
Wandering along the street across from the city hall building, Sakura took in her options. There weren’t many. A tailor shop, a café, and a small restaurant that looked to serve predominantly ramen. The tailor shop was obviously right out, and the idea of going to eat ramen alone without Naruto or anyone else from Team Seven was just a little too heartbreaking. The wounds of her teammates leaving were still too fresh.
She decided to try for the café instead, which seemed reasonable enough. She could enjoy coffee or tea throughout the day, sit in a corner with a good view of the city hall, and generally stay out of the way of the servers at the café. A perfect plan.
The café was nearly empty, so she just sat herself in a corner by the window at a table made for two. She pulled out her notebook and her pencil, made sure she had a good view of a clock from where she was, and settled in for a long day.
She made a mark in her notebook about what time she arrived, where the guard was standing, what he looked like, his general level of alertness. All of the pieces of information that might be relevant from a stakeout, she included in her own shorthand code. It wouldn’t be difficult for an experienced chunin or jonin to break, of course, but she was pretty proud; she had been tinkering with this idea for ages. With Kakashi’s help the night before she’d put the finishing touches on it, and she was proud to say she had her own personal cipher.
In the middle of jotting down all the things she could think of that would be useful information to her sensei before his infiltration and subsequent theft of important documents, the server came over to take her order. Sakura gulped; this would be the first real test of the cover story and her deception skills she’d have on this mission. She hoped it went well.
As he approached, she cataloged him. He was perhaps a few years older than her, with sleek sandy brown hair. It came down in a swoop almost covering one eye. He was pale and had long, slender fingers that drew her eyes in as he swirled a pencil around and around in some sort of dexterous trick. As he walked up and introduced himself, she couldn’t help but notice that though his hands were slender they had calluses on them. Not weapon calluses, they were in the wrong place for that, but he clearly did some kind of work or heavy lifting of something on a regular basis.
“Hey, welcome to Tsuki Teahouse. Do you know what you want to order?” His voice had a low timber, like it had dropped recently and he was still getting used to the difference, but he was past the point of feeling his voice crack regularly. He flicked his head in a short twitch, moving his hair out of his eyes.
“Er, yeah,” she murmured. “I was thinking just a latte or a cappuccino or something? Some kind of coffee to help wake me up, but nothing super strong or bitter.”
“We’ve got a few seasonal options. One is a Butterscotch Latte and the other is a Gingerbread Latte, if either of those work?”
“Hmm, how sweet are they?”
“The gingerbread will rot your teeth out, but the butterscotch isn’t so bad.”
“Butterscotch it is, then, thanks.”
“You’ve got it. Looks like we’ve secretly got an old lady hiding out today.” He let the last comment slide out with a smirk as he turned and walked away. Sakura huffed at him from her seat but didn’t say anything. She had more important things to do than bicker (or flirt, came unbidden from the recesses of her mind) with random coffee shop boys.
The latte came out shortly after with a lighthearted little “Here’s your latte, oba-san,” from the server. Sakura just rolled her eyes at him and kept diligent watch.
Watch was, however, very very boring. So she practiced some of the actual problems that Kakashi had devised for her so she’d have something to keep her occupied. It also did an admirable job of keeping up her disguise and giving her a valid reason to be writing in her notebook. Why Kakashi knew how to make accounting problems was a mystery, but at this point she was pretty sure nothing her sensei did would surprise her.
It was an hour into her stay, with an empty mug and the sun warming the side of her face as she took a break from practicing problems that something changed. Unfortunately, that something wasn’t a change in the guards around the city hall, or any additional focus or interest or checking of the perimeter of the city hall by the guards. It was the server, sitting down across from her at her tiny table for two.
She raised an eyebrow at him without lifting her head up from where it was leaned against the window.
“I know that, as you can clearly see, I’m very busy today,” he stated, gesturing to the entirely empty café. “But you just looked so bored I couldn’t help but come over to check on you. Want another latte?”
She lifted herself up from the window and rolled her neck. “Mmm, not right now, thanks for asking though.”
She paused, watching him, but he just continued to sit there, watching her. “Can I, er, help you?”
“Oh, sorry, no. My name’s Uehara Keitaro.”
“Ah, er, hello, nice to meet you. I’m Kodama Hiroko.” Sakura had been pleasantly surprised when Kakashi had pulled out prefabricated identification papers for them with names already drawn up.
“Nice to meet you too. Are you new around here? It’s only, I know a lot of the people around the city, and you aren’t one of our regulars that stop in on their travels either.”
“Do you really know everyone that well?”
“I do, yeah. We’ve got a prime location here, right across from the city hall. All the travelers who are world weary and want to take a load off after filing their paperwork to stop in city or sell their wares don’t want to walk too far. So, I’m guessing you must have moved here recently?”
“Ah, no actually,” Sakura said with a smile. “I’m travelling with my Uncle for the first time.”
“Oh! That makes sense, who’s your uncle?”
“Kodama Sozen.” Uehara paused, a thoughtful look on his face as his eyes flicked back and forth.
“He’s not a regular either.” He twitched to flick the hair out of his eyes again.
Sakura smiled at him. “No, he’s not. This is my first time travelling with him, but he said he doesn’t normally stop here.”
“Ah, that makes sense. Is he at the city hall, then? Adding us to his regular trading route?”
She rolled her eyes at him. “He’s not a trader, not really. He just travels to see our business partners near Okubiro.”
“So where is your uncle then?”
“Sick, unfortunately. That’s why we stopped in this city when he normally doesn’t. He wanted to keep going, but I asked him to stop. He really needed a doctor.” Sakura let the natural fear of a young girl facing the unknown, but trying to play it tough, rise up to the surface and play out on her face. She dug deep to that fear she felt in the face of the sound ninja in the Forest of Death, that worry for her teammates who she loved tempered by needing to put on a strong face in the face of adversity.
The boy reached his hand out and laid it over hers on the table. “Hey, I’m sure it will be fine, Kodama-san. Our doctor is one of the best. He even studied in Kamita, the Capital, for a while! He told you your Uncle would be fine, right?”
“Yes, he did.”
“Then I’m certain it’ll be okay. Here, what were you planning to do the rest of the day?”
“Oh, well, my Uncle gave me some accounting problems to work on?” Sakura held up her little notebook. “He and my dad are carvers and, well, I’m not likely to be one myself. So, this is their way of keeping me busy, I suppose.”
She wanted to ramble even further. She wanted to tell him about the full details of the cover story she’d concocted with Kakashi. To shout “look at me, I’m normal, I’m regular, I’m not a threat at all! Just an ordinary person, look at all these regular facts of my real life that has nothing to do with being a ninja even a little bit!”
That would just make her look more suspicious though. Instead, she blushed as she told just a tiny bit of her story, playing in to her character of a young woman on her first foray into adulthood. Shy, but excited.
“Well, that’s just great,” he said as he smiled at her. It was the first smile he’d given her all morning long. There’d been more than a few glances between them, and she always smiled when she caught him looking her way, or gave a small nod of her head or a wave. All she’d ever gotten in response was a hair flick or a smirk.
His smile was nice. It made her stomach flip.
She felt a rush of ice down her spine as she realized a few things in quick succession. The first was that this boy was almost perfectly designed to be right in her “strike zone” of cute boys she’d find attractive. He had so many of the same little mannerisms of Sasuke’s that she’d always found dreamy back in the academy and during the beginning of their time on Team 7. The only difference was, whereas Sasuke would have scoffed and disregarded anyone who expressed any kind of weakness or insecurity the way she had just shown, this boy had smiled at her. Exactly the way she’d always wished Sasuke would smile at her.
She was probably imagining things. It was likely just a coincidence. What were the chances that she’d run into a counter spy at the first location she chose for her stakeout? How likely was it, truly, that they would have a counter spy in place for her specifically, rather than Kakashi? How would they even know about what would or wouldn’t appeal to her specifically? She was a nobody!
And yet, that nervousness coiled in her gut as she stared at that disarming, sly smile.
Better to play it safe.
“Thanks, Uehara-san.” She gave his hand a small squeeze as she let a tiny smile shine through on her face.
“Call me Keitaro-kun, if you want. I have a feeling I’ll be seeing a lot of you until your Uncle gets better. We should be friends, you know?”
“Oh? Well, in that case you can call me Hiroko-chan. I’m happy to be friends!”
There was a brief pause of silence, one Sakura felt was on the verge of becoming an awkward silence rather than a comfortable one. She wanted to keep him talking, get more information from him in case he was a counter spy, a foreign ninja in disguise just like she was. She reached for a topic and was glad when her mind grasped onto something quickly.
“Wait, why will we be seeing a lot of each other?”
“Well, because your Uncle is sick, of course! You can’t spend all day locked up in the room you’re sharing with him, or else you might get sick as well.”
“What if I want to do other things in city, huh?” She asked this with a quirked eye, challenging, while internally freaking out about the fact that Keitaro knew they were sharing a room. There was definitely no reason he should know that! She kept her cool though, persona firmly in place.
It was strange, how easy acting came to her. She’d kind of been acting her whole life, keeping her more violent thoughts hidden deep inside while she showed a sweet, pleasant persona to all the adults in her life. This was just the same, except instead of anger and violence and pure, unbridled bravado being tucked away it was fear and worry. Not so different, she was finding. Just package up all those unwanted emotions and feed them deep to the depths of her mind and soul, so far down no one would ever be able to find them. Let the litany of worries and concerns run in the background, in her own voice, silent and unnoticeable to the rest of the world.
“What could be better than spending all your days at the best café in city?! I promise you, no one else has a drink or snack as good as ours. And the view here is the best. You get to people watch! All the travelers that come to the city walk right by here, as I said.”
He finally moved his hand from hers, and was she imagining the slight wet feeling of sweat from his palms as he moved his away? They’d certainly had their hands touching for too long; did he know she was on to him?
“Er, well, you might need to find somewhere else to be during the lunch rush. We do get pretty busy then. Other than that though, you can spend all day here if you like.”
Sakura looked over at the two older women behind the counter. “Don’t you think one of them, or the owner, would have something to say about that?”
He rubbed the back of his head with a sheepish look. “Ah, well, that’s the thing. I kind of own the place? At least, I’ll own it out right and in full in a few years. That’s my Aunt and my Mom; technically they own the building and I own the business, and we all live upstairs. So long as we have an open table, they won’t care. That’s why I said maybe not during the lunch rush.”
That was a lot of information to give to what was practically a stranger. Was he trying to lure her in with a show of trust by being open about his personal life? Also, some of those facts definitely didn’t line up. She eyed him. “Are you old enough to old a café?”
“It’s complicated,” he muttered. “That doesn’t matter though. All that matters is that what I say goes, more or less, and I say you can stay.”
“It’s really okay for me to take up a table for most of the day after only buying one drink?”
“Well, you might always buy another one! Besides, do you see how many open tables we have?” He gestured around. There was only one other table currently occupied, by a cute old couple who seemed to be enjoying a pastry and giggling to each other like young lovers rather than the old timers they were.
She shrugged, “If you say so.”
“Besides, having a pretty girl sitting in the window is definitely good for business.”
The world seemed to stop for a moment as the words that left his mouth seemed to settle. He looked like he desperately wanted to suck them back up, take them back and shove them deep down so they couldn’t escape. A blush rose up and his face looked like it might explode with steam from embarrassment. Sakura was certain she was blushing as well; she chose to believe it was only an act, definitely an act that she was putting on. This wasn’t even her real face!
Close enough, shannaro! I knew I was the cutest kunoichi in our class!
“Anyways! You probably have work to do, I’ll get out of your hair.” He said this as he backed away, stuttering and gesturing to her notebook of accounting problems. The moment he was far enough away it wouldn’t be awkward, he turned and fled. Sakura watched as the two older women questioned him for a moment before she heard two loud peals of laughter take over the whole shop. The older man from the couple was getting up to use the restroom and the woman made her way over to Sakura.
“Keitaro-kun is such a good boy,” the woman said by way of greeting. Sakura thought that was a little rude, and a lot presumptuous to start a conversation that way. She kept it to herself.
“He’s very focused and studious, such a hard worker. He pays such good attention to his family as well. Always puts his family and the business first. It’s not often that anything manages to catch his eye outside of that. It’ll be a lucky girl that finally manages to make his eyes wander from his duty, even for a moment. That’s something a young lady could be proud of; there’s worse catches than him!”
“Thank you for the advice and compliment, oba-san,” Sakura demurred. The woman gave Sakura’s hand a small pat then went back to her table with her husband.
Sakura hunkered down, hiding her face behind her notebook and marking down in code that the guard at the city hall had left his post to head inside. She had noticed while talking to Keitaro and made sure to note the time he went in and how long he went in for.
If Keitaro really was an enemy ninja, she’d let him think he’d distracted her and played her for a fool for as long as she possibly could. She promised herself she’d be useful to Kakashi on this mission and nothing would get in her way.
Not even this blush that she couldn’t seem to get rid of.
~~Nakairi~~
After about a half hour or so of stolen glances and furious blushing, Keitaro seemed to get over himself and Sakura let herself fall further and further into the persona of Kodama Hiroko that she’d crafted. As a result, she was able to compartmentalize the embarrassment she felt personally over being called pretty, even if she was wearing a Transformation Jutsu. Instead she felt only the lingering embarrassment that Kodama Hiroko would feel, which Sakura decided would be mixed with a healthy dose of pride.
Sakura watched the cafe slowly but surely fill up with customers as the day dragged on. It wasn’t busy at any point which meant that she never felt guilty for taking up a table. She kept diligent tabs on the guard rotation. Then, almost as though if she had blinked she’d have missed it, the cafe was suddenly full.
She looked around and could remember watching each individual table of guests walk in, but when she saw how they managed to fill the space she was still surprised. Keitaro and the other two women, his mother and aunt, ran food and drinks all over the place, back and forth.
She almost lost her cool and perked up when something finally happened. She managed to save herself before giving anything away. The single guard at the front door was greeted by someone else dressed the same way, likely another guard. A short conversation was had, and then the guard who’d been standing at the front door all day started to cross the street as the other man took over his post.
Sakura quickly noted this down in her notebook, which she’d been regularly scribbling in throughout the day. She had even less to worry about as she wrote down her notes, though, because the small café was so packed that she’d be surprised if anybody was looking at her at all. Keitaro was swanning through the tables, refilling drinks and placing down ordered pastries like it was some kind of dance to which only he knew the tune.
The two women behind the counter were constantly taking orders and filling orders all the while, with smiles on their faces. Sakura knew she might have to get up and leave soon, given that the place was so packed there were no longer any seats available. Luckily, many of the people that had been coming in were ordering take out or drinks to go, so she hadn’t been evicted from her table corner yet.
That seemed like it might be coming to an end soon, though. The guard that had been standing out there all morning was headed directly towards the café. Sakura felt her heart catch; had she been discovered? Was she too blatant in her watching of the guard and they were coming to arrest her?
She didn’t know anything for sure so she balled up those worries and fears and sent them to the depths of her mind, hid them like she used to hide her tears as a child being bullied and her angry, vengeful thoughts during her time in the Academy when she needed to fit in with the other students to be what they expected her to be.
With her mind cleared, she watched from the corner of her eye as the door opened with the light “ding” of the bell that indicated someone was there. The guard walked in and a hush quickly fell over the crowded tables.
“Welcome to Tsuki Teahouse! Thank you for -. “
Keitaro began his signature welcome with the familiar bright and cheery attitude Sakura had come to expect from him. He said the same greeting every time that simple bell chimed.
She’d never seen him miss a single greeting. Now, though, she watched in rapt attention as Keitaro’s face turned dark and sour and his cheerful greeting was cut short, like he’d lost all his breath from a kunai puncturing a lung.
The teahouse was so suddenly quiet it was eerie, like they’d been transported to a whole other world.
“What do you want,” Keitaro finally managed to grit out. Sakura watched his mother and aunt behind the bar, both pointedly turned away from the confrontation. Sakura looked closer and saw that one of the two older women had the other wrapped up in her arms, comforting her as her shoulders shook. Was she crying?
She looked back to the guard and saw a chagrined look on his face as he grimaced. “It’s my lunch break. I just thought I might, er, grab something to eat.” His voice got weaker as his comment went on, and it didn’t start off that strong to begin with.
“Oh, well we both know how well that goes for you, when you start having thoughts,” Keitaro sneered. Sakura was shocked at the amount of venom in his voice as he said it. He must really hate this guard for some reason.
“Kei-kun,” the guard murmured, tears welling in his eyes. “It’s been months. I just – is this how it will always be?”
“You aren’t welcome at the Teahouse, Tsuki-san. Please leave.”
Sakura had to forcibly close her jaw from how far it dropped as a few pieces clicked into place. It would be a phenomenal coincidence if the guard just happened to share the same name as the teahouse without being somehow related to it. Was there bad blood there? What was going on?
More importantly, was this something she could leverage in some way?
She had the thought almost before she realized it and felt a strange mixture of pride and concern that it was where her mind immediately went to. Her mother would no doubt be horrified that she was thinking of other people as nothing but tools or leverage. There was a warmth at the surety of knowledge that if she told Kakashi though, he’d be quietly proud of her.
A strange mix, for certain.
The sound in the café picked up again as the guard, Tsuki-san apparently, walked out with a morose expression. More and more people continued to stream into the café and Sakura realized this was the perfect opportunity. She brought her empty mug up to the counter, left the payment and a generous tip underneath the saucer, then did a quick scan of the room. Keitaro was flittering back and forth, stiff upper lip firmly in place. His eyes told a different story though; they were stormy and fierce, a sharp contrast to his horribly fake customer service smile.
Sakura made a risky, split second decision. She navigated her way through the throng of people and moved in the direction so their paths would collide.
“Looks like you’re just going to get busier and busier,” she murmured. “I’m going to head out.”
His eyes widened and he hurried to respond. “Sorry, it wasn’t that whole scene that made you leave, was it? That doesn’t normally happen, but –“ she cut him off before he could continue.
“It’s just too busy in here, I feel bad taking up a whole table. I’ll be back after the lunch rush?” She fluttered her eyes at him and, heart beating in her chest like a thousand earth jutsu pounding against her rips, she let his fingers flit our and brush lightly against his wrist. “If that’s okay?”
His demeanor changed instantly. The flinty look hidden behind stiff professionalism was replaced with a light blush and starry eyes.
“Of course! We’d love to have you back. You can, er, have whichever table you want probably and oh! You can try another latte flavor. Later. When you come back. Yes.”
Sakura felt her own blush rise up her cheeks as he stuttered his excitement for her to return. “I’ll be back then,” she said. Then she scurried out of the teahouse, only one last glance backwards before she was gone for good.
She didn’t slow her pace as she walked down the street a little ways before she slipped into an alley between two buildings. Her heart was still thundering and she lifted a hand to her chest, using light pressure to try and still her wild emotions.
She still wasn’t entirely sure she could trust Keitaro. The fact that he reached out to her might have just been a crush or some simple infatuation, but he might have been a foreign ninja who had made her and was playing a deeper game than she could recognize.
If he was just a random civilian, then the fact he had some connection to that guard might be a point of entry, some kind of leverage or source of knowledge about the guards in general. If he was a foreign ninja though, she needed to know. And she had just the way to find out.
She fed chakra through her pathways and down to her feet before taking a short, silent hop up the wall and to the roof of the building. She ducked down low so that even if a passerby on the busy street looked up, they wouldn’t see her.
She moved quietly across the roof tops back towards the teahouse. Keitaro had mentioned that he lived upstairs with his mother and aunt. It was time to see just how true that was. Hopefully she’d be able to uncover his secrets from where he said he lived.
She reached the roof of the teahouse and, still staying low, made her way around all four sides. Obviously the front of the building wasn’t a valid point of entry, but if the back didn’t have a window then she’d have to hope there was one on the side of the building. Luckily, the back did have a window. She walked over and down the lip of the roof and on to the wall before situating herself to a smaller profile. She let the chakra at her feet fluctuate, sliding down the wall of the building until she was right next to the window and then increasing the flow of her chakra so she stuck once more.
She checked the window slowly and methodically for traps, but there were none she could find. Hopefully a point in favor of them not being foreign shinobi. Glad she’d thought ahead to bring her kunai with her, she quickly used it to unlock the window. She entered the room with caution, each step light and measured as she moved around.
Sakura’s hope that there would be an office with paperwork or missives she could peruse was short lived. It was a home, but only barely. A small apartment, with two bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and barely a bathroom to speak of. The kitchen seeemed to also double as a living area. Sakura perused it and saw it was very well lived in, the kind of lived in that made it hard to believe it was a set up for undercover agents. Still, she went through all her checkmarks on her mental checklist of things to look for to determine if it might have been a fake setting by ninja who were in deep cover. This was something that, finally, the Academy had taught her that was now useful in the field.
So far as she could tell, it wasn’t. After investigating, she found herself in what she assumed was Keitaro’s room. Thankfully, he did have documents she could look at. She was rifling through his papers on the small desk right next to the bed when she heard the shout that sent terror through her.
“Did you need anything else while I’m up here, Mom? Aunt Imari? Okay, good!”
It was Keitaro. He was coming upstairs. She was almost certainly in his bedroom and there was no way she’d be able to escape back out the window before he came up the stairs. She heard his heavy thud as he took the stairs at heavy, fast rhythm; it sounded like he was taking them two at a time.
With a burst of chakra she leapt straight upwards, fingers just touching the ceiling. Her chakra latched out and attached her hand to the ceiling and she then did a full pull up into a lift to bring her other hand and her feet to the ceiling as well.
Would it be enough?
Probably, not; it wasn’t often that people looked up, but the ceiling wasn’t so high that it would be hard to miss her. If only she had one of the Disguise Cloaks from the Academy! They were all custom made, but having one now would have been so useful! Or if she knew how to use a genjutsu to conceal herself, that would certainly be even better.
The idea hit her in a flash. It was very risky. A ninja of any decent caliber would be likely to uncover her deception almost immediately. She had to decide, and fast, how much she trusted her skills in observations that Keitaro and his family were simple civilians and not ninja of any kind.
Kakashi’s words in the dark of night from the previous evening called out to her, strengthening her resolve.
I have faith in you.
She let her hands run quickly through the seals, glad for her practice in hand seal combinations as she managed to just finish the jutsu as the door was opening. Even a few weeks ago she would have stumbled through even these three simple hand seals.
Tiger – Dog – Horse!
She let the chakra settle over her body like a net, capturing the neural pathways of any who looked in her direction. She’d have to stay perfectly still while under its effects, but if she was right it would be the key she needed to not be discovered.
Keitaro was in the room with her, juts below her, and he sorted through his papers quickly. Point one in her favor that he wasn’t a ninja; even though she’d put them back as close to perfectly in place as possible, she knew it was slightly off. He would have noticed those subtle differences if he was a shinobi, they were trained to pick up those details.
“Right, got the receipt,” he muttered to himself. Then he took a huge breath, held it in, and stepped to his bed to pick up a pillow. He held the pillow to his face and then screamed.
His outburst was muffled really well by the pillow. Sakura had cried into her pillow at home as a child after being bullied often enough to know that muffling noises with your pillow was a difficult art form. He must have some experience with it.
He screamed one more time then pulled the pillow away and tossed it onto the bed.
“Stupid fucking Hirai, coming into the shop. What the hell is he thinking?!” he hissed. “Dad, Uncle, I’m trying,” he whispered, and Sakura felt more than she heard the pain in his voice. It was a deep, soul aching sympathy that filled her. The longing, the loss, the confusion at the unfairness of the world; she heard and felt it all deep in her chest. It was something she’d been feeling ever since her own Father had died in the invasion.
“Right,” Keitaro muttered. “Get it together, man. That’s enough bellyaching, you’ve got a job to do. You have to focus, Keitaro, focus.” He slapped his face after his self pep talk once, twice, and then turned swiftly on his feet.
“I’ve got that receipt Mom,” he called back down as he left the room. “Tell Shumei-san that we did buy 10 boxes, not 8, and I’ve got the proof! And next time he wants to argue about it, to not come during the lunch rush!”
Sakura stayed on the ceiling for a few minutes longer, to be sure that Keitaro was gone and wouldn’t be coming back up to interrupt her again.
She let out a breath and fell lightly back to the floor, not making a noise as her feet landed. As she snuck back through the window and closed it, leaving the apartment behind her, she couldn’t help but think about what she had just learned. She was torn.
On the one hand, she felt a pang of sympathy for the boy. Whether his father and uncle were dead, Sakura didn’t know, but they weren’t around and he clearly missed them. She wanted to connect with him on that, to provide a shoulder to cry on and to perhaps finally have someone she could talk to about her own thoughts and feelings that might actually understand.
On the other hand, those thoughts were all secondary to the first thought she had as soon as she realized Keitaro’s situation. She felt slimy as she realized it was her first thought, her first reaction, but the thing that had popped into her mind unbidden was simple. Hopefully Kakashi really would be proud.
I can definitely use this to my advantage. He’s as good as mine, and might definitely be a connection to get me good info on the city hall building for Kakashi-sensei