Casey glared up at the yellow bags of chips on the top rack as it half dangled just out of her reach. The shelves were too wobbly for her to put her full weight on them for even a second and if she knocked it with something from the toy section she knew she'll get banned for real this time, and that wasn't on the to-do list. This was the only location that even sold this flavor and nothing was going to stop her from getting her fix.
Except the shelf, apparently. And if her resolve ever broke on the whole getting banned thing, it was gonna be the first to go.
"How many?"
She jerked and swiveled towards the voice that suddenly appeared to her right—when did they even show up? Casey swore she would've heard something at least, but no, someone just popped out of nowhere like a whack-a-mole. Their hands tucked into the pockets of their baggy maroon hoodie and their hood was flipped up, and they had on some sort of gym shorts with a hammerhead shark silhouette at the bottom of one leg.
"... What?"
"Chip bags," the stranger said. And yeah, stranger danger and all that, but Hammerhead tipped their head at the shelf she'd been glowering at for the last couple minutes. "How many do you want?"
"Um." Casey mentally recounted the allowance in her wallet. "Three?"
A hand reached up for those stupid yellow bags that shouldn't have been stocked so high to begin with and they snagged three of them without stretching. And when that one arm brought them down and offered them up, their other hand pulled down their hood.
"Here." And she—her hair was pink. Cotton candy pink, freshly dyed. "The seaweed flavor's good too."
"I've never had seaweed." Casey stared longer than what was probably polite and, "I thought you had a bunch of ear piercings?"
Her cheeks bloomed red before she could stop herself, and the older girl only quirked a brow.
"I take them off at the gym. Casey, then? Leon's sister?" Hammerhead asked. Casey nodded dumbly, then watched as a hand extended her way. "Sakura. Nice to meet you."
Scars marked her palms and fingers and, when Casey slowly took the hand to shake it, she felt the dottings of toughened skin all over. The handshake she wasn't expecting, but to be fair it wasn't like she had a lot of expectations to begin with. Leon talked about her enough that she had a vague idea of who he was dating, but she wasn't on any social media and didn't like being in pictures. Sounded pretty sketchy to her, but Claire seemed to like her and her friends too, and Claire was way cooler than Leon could ever be.
But it was also... she didn't know, Sakura just never really sounded like his type. And if his ex was anyone to go by, she expected a lot more lipstick and manicured nails and handshakes that didn't have such a firm grip.
She blinked down at her hand when Sakura took hers back. "Uh, nice to meet you too." Her head raised back up. "Are you really my brother's girlfriend?"
"Yeah."
"He asked you out first? And you said yes?"
"I like him too."
Sakura's face stayed blank, and her tone didn't change once.
"Like... for real?"
"I wouldn't waste my time if I didn't."
"Huh." Casey blinked again. "I kind of had a whole thing planned out for when I finally got to meet you, but I'll be honest—you're a lot different than I thought, so now I'm just kind of... confused. No offense."
Sakura tipped her head to the end of the aisle nearest to them and shoved her hand back in her hoodie pocket before walking off. Casey startled a brief second before jogging to catch up to those long strides from even longer legs, arms full of puffed-up plastic.
"I wasn't expecting it," the older girl admitted. "I'm not that friendly, so I didn't think he'd keep texting me after we finished our project. But he did." Impassive. A lot of muscles. Pretty intimidating, especially when she looked so cold she could probably turn someone into an ice sculpture with a single glare. "Leon's... different from a lot of people I know. I don't mind getting used to it."
But even when she was tall, dark, and distant, the warmest part about her so far was the way she said his name.
Casey shook her near-black hair out of her face. "Wait, he started liking you during a project? God, he's such a dork."
Sakura's lips quirked as they stepped up to the dog section in the pet aisle. The bottom shelves were stacked flat with the bigger bags of kibble and when she ducked towards them, Casey's first thought was: why didn't she get a cart? Her second: whoa, when Sakura slipped one arm under two almost-fifty pound bags and hefted them both over shoulder like nothing. Then she turned around and headed back out the aisle with the same pace and gait as when she went in.
Casey stared.
Then rushed back up to Sakura's side when she stopped and waited for her to catch up.
"Did you get a ride here?" Sakura asked.
"Nah, I walked. We're close to my school and I was supposed to stay after for make-up work, but my teacher's out sick the next couple days so I was just going to get this and then ask Leon to come get me."
"Hm." They started toward the self-checkout. "Are you hungry?"
Casey shifted the bags in her hands and squinted a bit over them. "Uh. Sure?"
"I'll give you a ride. Leon and I are going to the Thai place on the corner of Fountain Park." Sakura walked up to the closest empty checkout station and scanned both bags without moving them from her shoulder. Damn. "You'll like their chicken satay."
One of the things she hated most about Leon's ex was that she always 'forgot' he wasn't an only child. Casey only saw her a handful of times, all at the house and all when Dad was at the precinct and Mom was at the university, but she already knew better than to even try to pretend to be polite. No point in trying when the person in question barely looked at her when she clack, clack, clacked around the house in her stupid high-heels, winding her brother around her fingers so easily when he didn't realize she wanted a boytoy instead of a boyfriend.
"I don't wanna crash your date." Then her arms were suddenly chip-free and Sakura was sliding three barcodes across the scanner and dropping them into a grocery bag on the other side. "You don't have to—!"
"For the trouble of them being on the top shelf," Sakura said, like that was supposed to be an answer. "And you're not crashing."
And honestly, the huge gray Jeep they approached in the parking lot only added to her don't-mess-with-me vibe. Sakura lowered the food into the trunk and waited for Casey to drop her bag in before shutting the door. She looked down at her, a perfectly expressionless face and dark eyes that gave nothing away.
"You're coming with?"
Casey really did have an entire thing. She was going to get a little mean, a little bratty, then give a real reason why she wasn't going to let her brother's heart shatter a second time because he fell too hard again. She could barely look at him the next few weeks after his ex laughed in his face when he told her he loved her; maybe if he'd shut himself in his room for a bit or did something stupid, it would've been fine. But what he did instead? He still helped her with her homework, still picked her up from school, still joked and laughed and annoyed the hell out of her like she hadn't been the one to stumble in and see that look on his face when his ex walked away.
(It almost made her cry. She didn't know how he didn't.)
"Okay," Casey agreed before she went and slid into the passenger seat. "Is this Thai place better than the one by the riverwalk?"
"They're overrated."
"It's impossible to beat their crab fried rice."
"Their spring rolls are weak."
Casey smushed her lips together to keep her laugh from spilling out and settled for picking out what she could. Super clean car, but it looked like it'd been through hell. The outside was fine, but there were dents in the door, scratches on the dash, smears of all colors of paint on the seatbelts and console—
Sakura started the car, her phone connected, and the song Casey had been listening to on repeat for the last two days poured out of the speakers in all its indie pop glory. The best song on the best album from the best band, and who all the girls at school bought concert tickets for and who made Leon and all his jock friends roll their eyes.
"You listen to Three Heartbeats 'til Fall?" Casey gaped. "The boyband?"
Sakura raised a finger to her lips and winked before turning up the volume and backing out of the parking space.
Oh no, she's cool.
Casey turned defeated eyes out the windshield. She didn't think Leon's new girlfriend was gonna be buff and cool and sound like she genuinely liked him, but she guessed that had to be alright. If she couldn't find anything bad she didn't have to worry too much, and she'd already been making Leon so happy, so...
The car pulled up to some corporate building.
"Last stop before we meet Leon," Sakura said, turning down the volume knob. "Won't take long."
Not a moment after the gear shifted to park, a man in a dark suit stepped out of the building. One hand ran through his dark brown hair as he took the baby car seat he came out with and immediately opened the car's back door to fasten it into the seat. What she thought was Japanese rapid-fired out his mouth and Casey sat hopelessly lost, twisting her head around to peer behind her. He was younger than Dad and buckled in the carrier like he'd done it in this car a million times before, and Sakura spoke to him seamlessly in that other language.
And after he planted a quick kiss on the baby's forehead and shut the door, Sakura lowered shotgun's window as he moved to it.
"Ah, I didn't realize you had company!" He mused in English. "Maa, you're making so many friends, Sakura! It might bring me to tears."
The unimpressed stare Sakura leveled him only made him laugh.
"This is Leon's sister," she said.
"Casey," Casey supplied, eyeing him curiously.
His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. "I'm Sakura's uncle, Tenzo. And that's Itsuki-chan in the back, dozing off after lunch." He glimpsed the watch face on the inside of his left wrist. Aiyah, totemo isogashii. I'll leave you two to it. Sakura, mata ashita no gogo?"
She shifted the car back into drive. "I'll be there tomorrow night. Got new errands."
He turned, then raised a parting wave. "We'll keep your dinner in the oven. Drive safe, drink water!"
Tenzo slipped back into the building. Weird—Casey couldn't see too well through those windows. But the thought slipped her mind when the music turned up again, not at loud as before, and they were back on the street.
Huh. She wasn't counting on meeting an uncle and a baby today either.
Casey turned in her seat so she was facing the driver's side. "So what's your favorite song on the new album?"
:: ::
Konan plucked the orange splash stick from her coffee, its plastic a shade lighter than the polish on her nails, and drew in a long sip.
She lowered the cup without a smear from her dark lipstick. "I will double your pay if you become my secretary."
"That sounds like favoritism."
"Triple."
"You know your law department would fall apart if I didn't keep things organized, and then you'd have a grumpy Itachi on your hands."
She hummed and took another sip. "It would be a change of pace."
Kurenai chuckled and set the drink carrier on the reception desk. Even though Konan did have to check up on Kisame's gym while he was off on assignment in Greece, there was no reason for her to show up in the middle of her work day. She can claim 'irregular check-ins' all she wants, but Kurenai can pinpoint an excuse from a kilometer away. Chief executives needed breaks too—especially the ones who recently expanded their mercenary organization into bioterrorism—so it was barely a passing thought that she stopped by the coffee shop with the marigolds in the window and picked up something for them both.
Sometimes she thought about how strange it was that just a year ago, she was on the run and Konan was just one of the bloody shadows of Sakura's past.
Now they had lunch together if they were free at the same time.
Frankly, she thought she'd be a teacher for the rest of her life. It had been her life's dream ever since she was a kid, but it was just by sheer chance Sakura, Shino, and Kiba ended up in her homeroom at Konoha Junior High.
(And by chance she ended up so attached.)
The slight schick of the glass doors pulling open lifted Kurenai's head toward the front. A boy she'd never seen before slipped through, navy bomber jacket over a gray shirt and dirty blond hair swishing as he craned his head around. Teenagers didn't come around often with the intensity Kisame ran his gym, so she eyed him with a touch more scrutiny as he kept making his way inside.
"You look a little lost," she said with a kind, easy smile that offset the cold stoicism Konan was no doubt displaying. "How can we help you?"
"I was just seeing if... Sakura, was here?" He tilted his head as if he were confused at his own statement, but even the sheepish smile he flashed was friendlier than any of her kids could manage. "Sorry, she said if I didn't see her I could just ask around, but I'm not sure how literal she meant."
Kurenai narrowed her eyes.
"Kennedy," Konan noted. Kennedy—Leon Kennedy—stood a little straighter, and her gaze trailed him up and down once. "Good posture."
He blinked once. Twice. "Oh uh, thank you, ma'am."
It was good posture. No slouching but not completely at ease, and the slight strictness in his shoulders could be attributed to some traditional or military upbringing. Upper-middle class, most likely, and didn't have that sort of gleam in his eye that pegged him as some sort of trouble. She'd become an expert at spotting it—had to be with kids like hers—but this teen's exceeding lack of it heightened the skepticism she had ever since hearing the news.
Really, she would have never expected. If any of the kids were going to have someone, she thought the first would be Shino.
Konan watched him from over the lid of her cup, pinning Leon right on top of the shark jaws tiled on the dark floor beneath them. His hands jerked up to clasp behind his back.
"Position on the football team."
"Cornerback on varsity, ma'am."
"School standing."
"If things go as planned, salutatorian."
"Should you be in a situation where you are taken against your will, what would be your main—"
"That's a question you might have to save for later," Kurenai interjected, donning a lovely smile when the boy's eyes widened under the swoop of his bangs. "We haven't even introduced ourselves yet."
She turned that smile to Leon, and it sharpened under his twitch of surprise.
"Excuse us, we're just excited we finally get to meet you! I'm Sakura, Shino, and Kiba's aunt, Kurenai Yuuhi."
Recognition flashed through baby blue irises, and he grinned with an upbeat sort of charm. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Yuuhi." He turned his head a bit to the left. "And you too...?"
"Konan Devi," was all Konan offered before she took another long sip of her drink. Kurenai set hers on the counter.
"We were wondering when Sakura would bring you by." Her lips drew a sly turn. "And it looks like she's right—you're cute."
He was flushed in half a second but still managed, "I hope that gets me bonus points."
Kurenai laughed, and to her mild surprise it might be genuine. "Either way, I'm glad we caught you. Sakura's running some errands but she'll be back any time now, so I hope you don't mind us until she does."
"Not at all!"
She wondered how much he knew. Sakura's least favorite topic had always been herself, and she always sit in silence for days rather than tell a stranger her favorite soda—Sparletta Creme Soda which Shino said she wouldn't stop drinking when they visited Catatumbo Sanctuary in South Africa over the summer—so forgive her reluctance in welcoming Leon with open arms. They've only been seeing each other for such a short time, she knew that, call her overbearing, but this couldn't be ignored.
Sakura and the boys never tried to make other friends, much less start dating. This should be a good thing, a healthy thing, and all she ever wanted for them was to have a chance at normal. To take a few years to live instead of survive, to play a sport or join a club or go to a party and come back past curfew knowing full well they'd get in trouble.
But these past few years weren't kind, and the years ahead of them would be even less. And when working outside of the law was part of their ordinary, no worry was too small to have.
"Who do you want to be once you're out of high school?"
Konan remained ever unphased with her inquiries that Leon might not realize were her heavier ones when they were masqueraded as something every adult asked a kid until they weren't kids anymore. And this one—it would mean a lot more than he'd ever know. He might be only sixteen, seventeen, but so was Sakura. If he couldn't measure up in their eyes...
He tilted his head, more than likely thrown off at the who when he'd only heard that question start with a what, and a scrunch grew between his brows when he gave his answer without any thought at all.
"Still me, I hope," he joked lightly. He glanced briefly at his shoes. "But I, uh, I just want to help people. After I graduate I plan on at least getting my associate's, and when I'm twenty-one I'm enrolling in the police academy. My dad—He's an officer, so I won't be going in completely blind." Then he rubbed the back of his head with a puff of a laugh, easy and unweathered. Sweet. "I guess I could be something different, but this is what I know best. Good place to start, right?"
Kurenai tapped a couple fingers against her bicep in a thoughtful pattern. "My husband used to be on the force," she said. "It's been over a year since, but..."
Tenzo pale and bleeding and still, needles through Kiba's hands, Sakura screaming, Shino soaked in his cousin's blood, rain, rain, rain—
She patted his arm and kept up her smile. "That's an admirable goal, Leon."
Konan hummed, keeping eye contact as she finished off the last of her coffee and dropped the cup in the trash can beside the desk. Her gaze suddenly flitting to the space next to his head was his only warning before a hand landed on his shoulder.
He turned his head for the hand to raise a finger and poke him in the cheek.
Sakura smirked slightly, her other hand toting Itsuki's car seat. Leon's face melted almost instantly, eyes softening, mouth relaxing, uniform tension waterfalling into puddles around their feet. Kurenai could say it was relief from being saved from Konan's third degree, but he was too tender. Too warm. Too adorable.
Oh, Kisame was going to love him.
Another girl, younger than a high schooler, popped up at Leon's other side wearing loose fit jeans and a raglan tee.
"He always makes that face when you text him," she told Sakura. "And his dimples come out and it makes him look—"
Leon's head whipped toward her, face aflame. "Casey!"
"—like a total dork."
"I know. It's cute," Sakura replied with an inexpression practically identical to Konan's. His cheeks darkened and red spread up to his ears and down to his neck, and Kurenai pressed a couple fingers to her mouth to smother her laugh as she stepped forward to take the car seat.
"Was Tenzo still busy at the office?" She asked. She cooed down at her daughter and wiped the spit dribbling down her chin. "And were you behaving for tou-chan?"
"Mm. Lots of new trainees to oversee. Suki and Tenzo had lunch before I drove her here."
"Was she fussy during the ride?"
Sakura shook her head.
"Only behaving for your nee-chan, hm?" Kurenai tsked, tweaking her baby's button nose. She looked back up. "I know Kiba already said he'll be there for dinner tomorrow and Shino's with Deidara, but you'll be...?"
"Late," Sakura answered simply. More shadowing, then. Kakuzu had been taking her on most of his local assignments as of late, and last she heard Hidan and Sasori were starting to do the same. "I'll text you."
Kami, why couldn't they wait until the kids graduated before drowning them in the rain?
"You had plans?" Konan questioned. She adjusted Sakura's hood and tucked a few loose strands behind her ear. At the girl's short nod, she hummed. "Go, have fun. Check in with me later."
"Yes, ma'am."
Leon observed the exchange with an oddly perceptive gaze, quiet and mindful as Casey half-hid behind him and looked between Konan and Kurenai with wide eyes.
Sakura's hand moved off his shoulder, and he laced his fingers between hers.
"It's been really nice meeting you Mrs. Yuuhi, Ms. Devi!" He flashed them a winning smile as Sakura tugged him out the gym. "Hope you have a great rest of your day!" A little ways away, he glanced down at Casey. "You're getting Thai with us?"
"Uhuh. Sakura asked me earlier."
"You'll like their chicken satay. Also, aren't you supposed to be at school? Mom's going to—"
The door shut behind them.
"He has a good heart," Kurenai noted solemnly, finally allowing the smile to drop from her face. She slid the carrier handle over her forearm and picked up her lukewarm coffee. "If they don't end up long term, at least she'll have a good experience."
Konan's eyes traced the three figures across the parking lot until they packed up in an old blue pick-up and drove out of sight. Her fingers twitched, itching for a slip of paper to mold into something of her own making. "We'll see if he will be there in the end."