“What are they doing here?” I ask staring between my adoptive parents and my biological parents.
“Nice to see you too,” Itachi says sarcastically.
“And here I thought you actually liked us,” Sasuke adds with mock hurt. Damn those two clean up nicely. I mean they’re both wearing expensive suits and Itachi has a red silk tie while Sasuke has a midnight blue one. Fugaku’s wearing something similar and Mikoto’s fancy black cocktail dress makes my outfit look like I belong out on the street.
“They’re here for dinner,” Kushina says.
“Oh joy,” I mutter only loud enough for Naruto to hear. “And for what compelled the high and mighty Uchiha’s to come dine with us lowly common folk?” Naruto has to place a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh and Kushina gives me a disapproving look like she knows I said something rude. I respond by giving her an innocent smile.
“After seeing you I remember how much I missed Kushina,” Mikoto explains. “So I called her to apologize.”
“And your mother invited them to dinner,” Minato adds.
“Traitor,” I mumble and Naruto chuckles.
“Come on,” he whispers and nudges me forward. “It won’t be so bad.” He walks over and shakes Mikoto and Fugaku’s hands while introducing himself. I go to do the same, but stop short when there’s a knock at the door followed by a loud shout.
“Tora! Tora open up, please!” I rush to the door and fling it open to reveal a teary eyed Suzume. She looks like she’s been crying for a while.
“What’s wrong?” I ask pulling her into the house and into a hug.
“M-my parents. W-we don’t have en-ough m-money. S-so they’re ma-making me stay with my U-Uncle while they m-move to America f-for a com-pany that hired my Da-Dad.” She cries. “W-we don’t ha-have enough money fo-or me to g-go with th-them!”
“Let me get this straight,” I pull away and look at her. “You guys are running low on money an your dad took a job in America and they don’t have enough money to bring you with them. So you’re going to be staying with you asshole Uncle and bitchy cousin.”
“Y-Yeah,” she nods.
“Oh you poor child,” I exclaim and hug her again. “Come on you can stay here tonight and I’ll make you feel better by catching you up on my screwed up life. But we have company.” I point over at the Uchiha’s.
“Oh,” she says, her face flushing with embarrassment. “H-Hey Itachi.”
“Suzume,” he says and ruffles her hair.
“Hey!” She shouts in mock anger. “That took me a whole minute to do this morning!”
“I’m going to take Suzume to clean up and we’ll be down for dinner soon.” I say and drag her up to me room.
“Why are the Uchiha’s in your living room?” She asks plopping down on my bed. “I mean I can understand Itachi being here, but no the other three.”
“Mom surprised us.” I sigh. “Apparently she was friends with Itachi’s mom and then they fought. But they ‘reconnected’ today and now I have to sit through an awkward dinner with my adoptive family and my biological family. Oh and Sasuke found out that I’m related to him and now we don’t hate each other anymore.”
“That sucks,” she laughs and wipes her face with a tissue. “The dinner part, not the Sasuke part. That’s pretty cool.”
“Yeah, but now you’re here to sit through it with me!” I say brightly.
“Yeah! No wait! I have to sit through this too?”
“You are staying the night,” I point out. “Unless you don’t want eat, you have to sit through this dinner.” I rummage through my closet and try to fin her something to wear other than her current basketball shorts and t-shirt.
“Curse you for using my love of food against me!” She shouts and glares at me.” I hate you.” She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts.
“Stop being such a baby and put this on.” I toss a black skirt and turquoise shirt at her and she almost falls off the bed trying to catch them.
“Fine,” she grumbles and walks across the hall to the bathroom. I look into my full-length mirror and sigh when I notice a wet spot on my shoulder from Suzume’s tears. I pull the shirt off and toss it on the ground then put on a tight black shirt with a bloody white rose on the front. Now that I know who the guests are, I really don’t care how I look.
Suzume walks back into room and raises an eyebrow when she sees my shirt. “Seriously?”
“Yep,” I say popping the “p”. I skip over to her and pull her hair out of her ponytail so that it falls to her shoulders in slight waves. “Now come on or we’ll get yelled at for taking too long.”
When we get halfway down the stairs Suzume grabs my arm to stop me. I glance back at her with a questioning look and she just smiles at me.
“I forgot to tell you the only good part about living with my Uncle.”
“And that would be?”
“He’s paying for me to go to the same school as you!”
I let out an uncharacteristically girly squeal and start doing a victory dance. Suzume stares at me like I’m the strangest thing on earth, shakes her head and joins in.
“What are you doing?” Asks a monotone voice.
“It’s their victory dance, Teme.” Naruto says.
“Naruto!” I shout. “Guess what I just found out!”
“Do I even want to know?” He asks.
“Suzume is coming to our school!” I say happily.
“Kami save us all,” he mutters and walks away.
“Love you too Naruto!” Suzume shouts after him with a laugh before her, Sasuke and I follow after him to the dining room where everyone else is waiting.
“Itachi!” Suzume squeals and glomps the unaware boy, causing them to fall to the ground. “Guess what? You’re gonna get to see me more often because I’m going to your school!”
“Kami save us,” Itachi says pushing the brunette off him.
“That’s what Naruto said,” I say happily and drag Suzume up.
“Oh and I think Tsunade took pity on me and gave me the exact same schedule as you!” My best friend says to me.
“That means you’ll have physics with Itachi!” I smile and Itachi groans.
“She’s sitting far, far away from me. In fact,” he smirks. “I think Hidan would love to sit with her.”
“I would love to see that,” I cackle and just imagine ways we could torment Hidan together.
“Is he the silver haired idiot I met at the mall?” Suzume asks and I nod. An evil smile forms on her face and chances are she’s thinking the same thing as me.
“Why are you suddenly going to Konoha Academy?” Minato asks.
“My parents don’t have enough money to take me with them to America so their making me live with my Uncle.” She explains sadly. “He said that if I’m going to live with him I can’t go to a filthy public school.”
“Well you’re always welcome here,” Kushina says giving her a hug.
“Thanks Mrs. Namikaze,” she smiles.
“Oh!” I exclaim. “We haven’t introduced you yet! Mr. and Mrs. Uchiha and Sasuke this is my best friend Suzume.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Mikoto smiles and shakes her hand.
“You too,” Suzume responds awkwardly.
“So,” I say. “What’s for dinner?”
“Sit down and you’ll find out,” Kushina teases.
“Why must you always be so mysterious?” I whine. “Why can’t you just come right out and tell me what I want to know.”
“Because it’s more fun this way,” she laughs and disappears into the kitchen followed by Mikoto. I grumble a few choice words under my breath and sit down next to Itachi with Suzume on the other side of me. Fugaku and Minato sit by each while Naruto and Sasuke sit next to each other.
Kushina and Mikoto come back into the room carrying platters of chicken parmesan and pasta. They place them in the middle of the table and take their seats. I immediately dig in and take four helpings of it; next to me Suzume does the same. Everyone else takes their food and an awkward silence settles over us, except for Kushina and Mikoto who are talking animatedly about the past twelve years.
“So,” I say turning to Suzume. “How’d your date go?”
“Not good,” she says making a face. “That Kankuro guy was such a jerk!”
“What did he do?”
“Aside from flirting with anything female that breaths, he kept making sexist comments and used a lot of sexual innuendos.” She growls. “The night finally ended when I left him at the restaurant for grabbing my butt.”
“Dear Kami,” I sigh. “If I had known he was going to do that I would never had suggested you go to the dance with him, but it really doesn’t matter now because you can go without having to come with a student.”
“Yeah, that’s the good part,” she smiles. “Now I can help hook you up with that cute redhead.”
“What cute redhead,” Minato asks raising his eyebrow. My face flames up and I glare at the oblivious brunette.
“The one Tora has a cru-” I cut her off by placing my hand over her mouth and giving her leg a kick.
“Shut up now,” I say lowly. “Or I will kill you in your sleep.” She licks my hand and I pull it back quickly to wipe it on my napkin.
“I love you,” she says in a childish voice.
“Don’t push it Haruno,” I growl. “Or I might just have to tell a certain raven haired boy about your crush on him, just from seeing him on TV.”
“You wouldn’t,” she pales and groans. “Oh who am I kidding, you totally would.”
“You know me so well,” I smirk.
“Hm, a raven haired boy.” Itachi muses. “You wouldn’t happen to mean my little brother?” His eyes flick over to Sasuke who is fighting with Naruto.
“What? Pft… No…” She trails off her face bright red. I wink at Itachi to let him know he’s right.
“You are such a terrible liar,” I chuckle.
“Shut up,” she grumbles and pushes her food around her plate.
“So Suzume,” Mikoto says from her place at the end of the table. “I hear that your Uncle is rich, do you mind me asking who he is?”
“Not at all,” she smiles glad for a change of subject. “I’m part of the Haruno family. My dad was the one who got disowned for falling in love with a ‘commoner’”
“So that means you’re related to Sasuke’s girlfriend Sakura.” Mikoto says.
“Sadly yes,” she sighs.
“Speaking of Sakura,” Fugaku says and turns to Sasuke. “How are things between you and her?”
“You haven’t told him yet?” Itachi asks and shakes his head. “You’re in for it now.”
“Told me what?” Fugaku asks in a deadly tone.
“Back away slowly,” I whisper to Suzume and stand up with her while taking a few steps away from the table.
“Um… funny story,” Sasuke mutters. “I, uh, I kind of broke up… with her.”
“You what?” Fugaku roars, standing from his seat. “Do you have any idea how important it is for us to have good relations with the Haruno’s? You’ve completely ruined any chance of our companies merging!”
“I know Dad, but-”
“No!” My biological father rages, a vein popping out of his forehead. “I don’t want to hear your excuses. I want you to go home now! And we’ll discuss how you’re going to apologize and get back with Sakura later.”
This seems to be Sasuke’s breaking point. His fists are clenched tightly at his sides and he looks like he wants to murder the man in front of him. “No,” he growls. “I’m not going to take this shit anymore. I broke up with that bitch because she insulted Tora!”
“I thought you hated Tora!” Fugaku shouts.
“That was before I found out she’s really my twin sister that you two gave up when we were born!” His eyes widen and the whole room freezes, everyone looks at me. Panic rises in my chest and I feel like a deer caught in headlights.
“What?” Mikoto breathes. That’s all it takes to jolt me out of my statue-like state. Before anyone can stop me, I bolt out of the house and get on my motorcycle. I strap on my helmet before speeding off down the street to the only person other than Suzume that can comfort me.
Third Person POV
“Kami, I’m so stupid,” Sasuke groans and bangs his head against the table. “She’s going to hate me forever.”
“No she wont,” Suzume places a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “She just needs some time right now. It just… surprised her.”
“That girl was…” Mikoto trails off, tears brimming in her eyes. Her husband goes to stand behind her seat and places a comforting hand on her shoulder. The dark haired woman leans back into him and closes her eyes. One look at his wife sends Fugaku into another fit of rage.
“How dare you?” He growls at Sasuke. “How dare you tell such a horrible lie?”
“It’s not a lie,” Itachi says. “And don’t try to deny it, we have proof from a blood test.”
“There’s no way,” Fugaku says lying smoothly. “We never had a daughter!”
“Stop lying!” Naruto shouts finally having enough of the older man’s bullshit.
“Naruto,” Minato warns.
“No Dad!” Naruto exclaims then turns to the two Uchiha parents. “You have no idea what that girl has been through because of you! Before we adopted her, she was in a horrible place where she was hurt every day. When she was younger she used to think there was something wrong with her because why else would her parents give her up? She used to cry every night until she realized people like you weren’t worth crying over.”
“When I first met Tora,” Suzume says softly. “She was depressed and hated everyone. She wouldn’t trust anyone, not even the Namikaze’s because she thought that if she let herself get close to them, she’d just get betrayed.”
“It’s all because of your selfishness that Tora had to suffer.” Naruto says close to tears. “It wasn’t until we were twelve, six years after we adopted her, that she finally opened up to us.”
“B-But we made s-sure she would g-go to a g-good ho-ome,” Mikoto cries.
“The dad of the family you sent her to gave her back to the adoption agency after they found out his supposedly infertile wife was pregnant.” Itachi explains. “After that she went through a series of foster homes with uncaring families who only wanted the money they got from it.”
“There’s no way of avoiding it,” Fugaku sighs. “We need to figure out a way to keep this from getting out.”
“You don’t have to worry about it getting out,” Suzume growls angry at his insensitive words. “Don’t you think that Tora would have told the press already if she wanted to be a part of your family?”
“Besides, why would she ever want to return to the people who gave her up?” Naruto asks. A strange silence falls over the room only broken by the occasional sob of Mikoto. The ringing of Naruto’s cell phone finally breaks the silence.
“Hello?” He answers. “Mhm… is she okay … that’s good to know… yeah we’re on our way now… bye.”
“What’s going on?” Suzume asks.
“Tora’s at Temari’s house and she wants me, you, Sasuke, and Itachi to come over.” He explains. “And she wants us to pick up a few things on the way over.”
“What kind of things?” Sasuke asks.
“Mainly junk food and movies.”
“Well if they want junk food we need cookie dough, ice cream, gummy bears, Mountain Dew, Kit Kats, and brownies.” Suzume lists off.
“Do we really need all that?” Naruto asks.
“If we want to make Tora feel better we do.”
“Okay we can take my car,” Sasuke says and the group makes their way to the door completely ignoring Fugaku yelling that his sons better not go over there.
“Naruto!” Kushina calls after her son.
“Yeah Mom?”
“Take care of your sister,” she says. “And let her know that I’m sorry I even suggested this dinner in the first place.”
“I will,” he says and disappears out the door after the others.
Tora POV.
“Are they coming?” I ask Temari as I come out of the bathroom in a borrowed pair of red pajama pants.
“Yeah,” Temari replies. “So tell me what happened.”
“Okay so when I got home from the training grounds I was told to get ready because we were having guest over.” I explain. “Those guest happened to be the Uchiha’s. Then my best friend Suzume showed up at my door step crying over her parents having to leave her behind while they move to America. So we went up stairs and cleaned her up before we went back down to dinner. Everything was going fine until they found out she was a Haruno and Fugaku asked Sasuke about his forced relationship with Sakura.
“Sasuke told him he broke up with her and Fugaku got extremely angry at him. When he told Sasuke that he had to get back with Sakura, Sasuke snapped and told him he did it because she insulted me. Fugaku said that he thought Sasuke hated me and Sasuke accidently admitted that he stopped once he found out I was his twin sister. After that I ran out and came straight here.”
“Holy shit,” Temari breathes. “That had to be one hell of a night.”
“Tell me about it,” I sigh and stretch out on her bed. “At least no one stopped me before I could run out.”
“Yeah,” she says as a chiming noise goes through the house. “Looks like they’re here.” We get up and go to the front door; as soon as Temari opens it I’m crushed by my three brothers.
“Guys,” I gasp out. “I-I can’t… breath.”
“Sorry,” they say in unison and release me.
“Are you okay?” Sasuke asks holding onto my shoulders and staring directly into my eyes. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to tell him, it just slipped out! Please forgive me.”
“It’s okay,” I smile at him. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. I’ve already forgiven you.”
“Thank Kami!” He exclaims and hugs me to him. I wrap my arms around his waist and bury my head in his chest.
“What’s going on?” Kankuro’s voice cuts into our little brother-sister moment.
“We’re having a pity party!” I say happily and step away from Sasuke. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Whatever,” the brunette shakes his head and goes upstairs.
“Oh, Temari this is Suzume,” I say introducing my best friend to my other best friend.
“From what Tora’s told me about you I can tell we’re going to be good friends,” Temari smiles.
“Yeah I think this is the beginning of a very beautiful friendship,” Suzume says.
“So did you bring the stuff?” I ask Suzume.
“Yep,” she says pointing to the grocery bags on the floor. “I’ve brought everything we need to make this night awesome.”
“Come on,” Temari says. “We can set up in the TV room.” She leads us through the house to the room with the huge TV. The only problem was it wasn’t unoccupied. On the screen was some scene from a chick flick and on the couch was Gaara, Matsuri, Sakura, and Sora.
“Hey Gaara,” Temari says sweetly and all the couch residents turn to look at us. “We need this room.”
“No way,” Matsuri says. “We were here first.”
“Well sweetheart,” I say and start walking towards them. Suzume, knowing what I was thinking follows after me. “If you don’t move, we’ll just have to sit on you.”
“And believe me,” Suzume adds. “She’ll do it.”
“I don’t believe you,” Sakura says. “But it figures you’re friends with this bitch Suzume, I mean considering all poor people know each other.”
“What did you just call my best friend?” Suzume asks darkly.
“A bitch,” Sakura says as if challenging her to do something about it.
“Shall we?” I ask Suzume with a raised eyebrow.
“We shall,” she responds and we each plop down on one of the girls.
“Get your lard ass off me!” Matsuri screeches. Suzume and I roll off them, laughing like crazy to the point where we’re literally rolling around on the floor at their feet.
“Come on you psychos,” Sasuke sighs as he and Itachi help us up. “We can just wait until they leave.”
“But Sasuke,” I whine mocking Sakura. “I wanna watch a movie in here right now.”
“Itachi,” Suzume pouts. “Tell them to get out.”
“You two are worse then two year olds,” Naruto says and I see Temari smirk from beside him.
“But Naruto,” Temari whines and drapes an arm over his shoulders. “We don’t want to wait to watch a movie and our food will be gone before we can even watch a movie if we wait.”
“Do you have any idea how stupid you guys look right now?” Itachi asks.
“Well we were imitating Sakura and Matsuri,” Temari giggles.
“You know you love us,” I tease and give Sasuke a peck on the cheek. “Why else would you put up with us?” It’s strange but I think I can see a bit of jealously on Gaara’s face… Whatever.
“Why the hell would anyone love your ugly asses?” Matsuri sneers.
“Isn’t it cute how she thinks I actually care about what she says?” I ask.
“It is cute!” Suzume laughs. “They’re obviously jealous of how awesome we are.”
“Gaara,” Matsuri whines. “Make them go away.”
“Temari can you please just leave,” Gaara sighs.
“Aw poor little brother,” Temari coos and sits on the arm on the couch next to him. “It’s funny how you think we’re actually going to leave. You can stay but we get control of the DVD player.”
As if you prove her point Naruto takes out whatever crappy chick flick they were watching and puts in the first Iron Man movie. Temari goes to a closet and pulls out a bunch of pillows and blankets. She throws them on the floor in front of the couch and Suzume and I pull out all of our snacks. I hog the tub of chocolate chip cookie dough and settle on the floor in front of the couch with a spoon. Temari turns the lights out as everyone else grabs a snack and sits down.
Naruto hits play and everyone gets quiet, even the sluts. Halfway through the movie I hear a strange sucking sound and look behind me to see Sakura making out with Sora. Didn’t Sasuke just break up with her today? Man she really is a slut. I’m about to tell them to stop with some snarky comment when I see Matsuri and Gaara doing the same thing. A pang of jealously goes through me and my heart feels as if it’s being stabbed by a million tiny needles. Damn it! Why does Gaara have such an effect on me?
Eventually I can’t take it anymore and leave the room, ignoring the questioning looks coming from my friends. I sit in the hall outside and try to will the tears in my eyes away. I sit there for Kami knows how long just trying to calm myself down with my eyes closed and head in my knees. After a little while I hear the door open and someone sits down next to me.
“Are you okay?” A monotone voice that could only belong to Gaara asks.
“Yeah,” I whisper hoarsely trying to hide the fact that I was upset. “I just needed some air.”
“Me too,” he says hopefully believing my lie. “Matsuri can be a bit… overbearing.”
“That’s not the word I would use to describe her.” I snort.
“Yeah, I know.” He chuckles. “I believe it would be more along the lines of bitchy.”
“Yeah,” I smile and finally look up at him. His green eyes bore into mine and I feel my heart rate accelerate.
“You wanna get away from them?” He asks suddenly.
“Yes!”
“Come on, I wanna show you something.” He stands up and offers me his hand. I take it and a spark of electricity goes through my arm. As soon as I’m up I let go and look away to hide a blush. He leads me through the house to an attic and out of a window onto the roof. My breath hitches in my throat as I look at the view of the night sky. The stars seem so bright and there was a clear view of the moon.
“Wow,” I whisper. “It’s so beautiful.”
“Yeah, it is.” He says and I turn to see him looking at me. My heart stops beating for a second when I see him. He looks amazing; the light of the full moon causes his porcelain skin to glow making his blood red hair seem brighter. His eyes hold some sort of emotion I can’t read as his hand reaches out to brush a stray strand of hair out of my face. He lets his hand linger on my cheek and I lean my face into it letting my eyes close.
“This is nice,” I murmur.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?” I hear him ask. “I know you were lying when you said you were okay.”
“It’s…” I start then bite my lip. “It’s nothing.”
“I don’t believe you,” he says and I open my eyes to see a serious expression on his face.
There’s a moment of silence before I finally let out a sigh. “My life is going to hell.”
“What do you mean?” He asks in confusion.
“I’ve spent my entire life trying to forget about my past and in one night it’s all come rushing back to me,” I whisper as a few tears escape my eyes. “Not to mention that new problems keep presenting themselves. I’m glad that I have my friends, but they just… they just don’t know what it’s like to grow up in constant fear of getting hurt and then to fall for someone despite the heartbreak I’ve experienced in the past. Then add the fact that the person I’m falling for is already taken… it just sucks.”
“I understand how you feel,” he says softly and gently wipes my tears away. “When I was living in Suna, my dad would beat me. I was constantly afraid of making a mistake because it meant that I would be punished. He told me that if I ever told Temari and Kankuro what he was doing he would kill me and only left bruises where I could hide them with clothing. As for falling for someone against your better judgment, I know that felling all to well.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” I laugh. “But it’s nice to know that there’s someone else out there with a life that’s just as screwed up as mine.”
“The feeling’s mutual,” he chuckles and lies back to stare at the stars. I do the same and we sit in a comfortable silence. Gaara begins to hum a soft tune and wraps his arm around me. The song and Gaara’s slightly musky scent quickly lulls me into a calm state and I allow my eyes to close. Just before I slip into unconsciousness I swear I hear him whisper, “I think I’m falling for you.” But that could have just been part of a dream.
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Hi! So I know it's been a while since I've updated, but I started a new story (Please go check it out, it's called Ice and Amethyst) and I've just been so busy with sports. Anyways I hope this chapter was worth waiting for. I mean aren't Gaara and Tora just so obliviously cute? Or maybe it's infuriating? You tell me. So comments are appricated and votes are too, I hope you liked it.
~C.S.