A book in which Sasuke Uchiha finds himself falling for a girl struggling with mental illness.
The Uchiha household invites their family friends over to their holiday home, and brooding Sasuke finds himself falling for a girl who is slowly losing h...
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part 10 —- through the night
Sasuke couldn't sleep that night. He tossed and turned for hours, unable to shut his thoughts off and the mental images flashing through his mind. Itachi. The closet. Hana's journal. The words written on that paper. They repeated over and over again, the reason for his heart palpitations. He knew it was anxiety.
The first time he felt it, he thought he was having a heart attack and forced his parents to call for help. The two paramedics that arrived had been irritated that he had wasted their time, followed by Fugaku. He was thankful for his mother that night for defending him, telling them all that it was better to be safe than sorry, and it wasn't his fault that he had been having the physical symptoms of an actual heart attack— chest pain, shoulder and jaw pain, breathlessness, and everything else that fell under the call for help category.
Itachi had tried to comfort him by placing his hand on his arm as he walked by, but Sasuke had shrugged him off. Then, he could feel the heart attack symptoms coming back again, fuelled by his brother's touch.
Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows at the noise coming from downstairs in the kitchen. It had been going on for hours now, since he had gone to bed after dinner, but it was only beginning to get louder now. He turned to his side and grabbed the other pillow, shoving it over his head. It helped muffled the noise a bit, until the sound of the mixer turning on penetrated the pillow, straight into Sasuke's ears.
He sat up, tossing the pillow to the side. Was he the only light sleeper in this house? Judging by the consistent snores coming from both his parents room and Sora's, he believed so.
Sasuke made his way into the kitchen, squinting his eyes as they began to sting from the bright light.
"What are you doing?" he asked, slightly irritated yet curious at the same time.
Hana was standing by the mixer, which was now turned off. Both her, the walls and the bench were covered in white flour. She blinked at him, her hand still on the button. Through the flour that coated her cheeks, he could still tell that she had gone red with embarrassment.
"S-Sorry," she said with an awkward smile. "I'm trying to make Haru's birthday cake for tomorrow morning..."
Sasuke's eyes wandered over to the blackened cake sitting in the sink before returning to her. She noticed him looking at it and quickly explained, "I burned the first one because I forgot about it in the oven. So, it's going to take me a while to finish making the cake."
She was hand mixing now, too afraid to use the mixer again. Sasuke let out a sigh before walking over, noticing her breath hitch by his presence. He stopped beside her and peered over the top of the bowl that was still attached to the machine, before flicking a few switches on the side.
"There," he muttered, "try it now."
Hana pressed the start button again, and this time the mixer moved slowly, combining the wet and dry ingredients thoroughly until a thick batter was beginning to form. She let out a sigh in relief and looked at him to thank him, when he spoke first.
