Minato released her and stared her down, searching her eyes for the truth but was unable to read her. That was a first. Minato could alway read his woman like a book. Where was his Saki? The girl who wore her heart on her sleeve, nothing was kept secret from him so how was a secret so detrimental able to pass by him? 'That's impossible! Saki would never...but then why else would she be leaving?' No, this was not something this woman was capable of. She love's he, that was without doubt but was it really so hard to believe that she could love someone else too?
The Yellow Flash lowered his eyes and looked at nothing as he searched himself for an answer. One that he knew for sure but did not want to say. 'She was trying to leave to spare my feelings. She pities me.' That sounded more like his Saki and that's when he understood. For a moment he looked so vulnerable, so broken that it killed her inside. Sakura truly regretted what she just said. 'I shouldn't have said that. Why did I say that?! I should have said something, anything else...' That shattered look on his face was quickly snuffed out as his eyes darkened and his face twisted into a scowl. His eyes...the light was gone from them. The beautiful clear blue eyes that had only held love for her looked so dull now.
He looked at her like she was his worst enemy and honestly it hurt. Sakura could only imagine the thoughts going through his head and of course her mind could only conjure up the worst ideas. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears before she turned away from his cold stare. Sakura couldn't feel more guilty at this very moment. She grasped her chest with her right hand, feeling the throbbing pain as her heart ached for the man before her. The nurse took a shaky breath.
"Gomen ne-" She started but was quickly cut off.
"Who is he?" Those words sent shivers down her spine. She had never heard him sound so cold.
Hesitantly, Sakura took a step back. She hadn't meant to but his eyes were look on her so closely that it was impulse. No longer able to look him in the eyes, the nurse tried to find interest in the pale green polish of her toes. 'There is no one else! I'm lying!' Her guilty mind shouted. The pink little kunoichi bit her lip to stop herself from screaming the truth to him. What was she supposed to do? Sakura was not a great liar. As a matter of fact, she was a pretty pathetic excuse for a ninja when it came to such things. It amazed her that she had gotten this far in the first place. 'What do I do?'
"Who were you with Sakura?!"
"I cannot tell you that. It's none of your business. I'm- I am not your business anymore." She rebutted immediately, trying to sound as convincing as possible.
"Not my business...? You tell me you have been cheating on me but you don't have the decency to to me who?" He wanted to yell at her, erase every precious memory they'd shared. 'Two years of a relationship, gone! This is not my Saki...' Minato release an angry puff of breath. He could forgive a lot of things but cheating was a something he could never forgive. It's also something that he could not believe he would have to endure with Saki.
"You are not my Saki."
Sakura hung her head in shame, he face contorted in pain. Sure she didn't cheat but the feeling of shame did not leave her and the pain was like her heart was being pulled out of her chest. She was trembling now, so close to tears that the his next words would bring forth the waterfall she had held at bay all night. Minato was about to continue when he look at the shaky mess that was the woman he loved. She looked about ready to break and he couldn't bring himself to say anymore. By the gods, he wanted to hold her and take back everything he said. He probably would have if it weren't for him finally realizing the steady crowd that has gathered around them, whispering amongst themselves.
How could he have been so ignorant. The first fight they had in two years and it was broadcasted in front of all to see. Now, Minato was a very private person and to say that this was upsetting to him was an understatement. By noon, the entirety of Konoha will have found about tonight's events and that did not please him one bit. Glancing over to the medic, she had not moved an inch besides the apparent quaking.
It was that time that Kushina decided to make her presence know. She had been hidden amongst the chattering crowd, watching in shock and disbelief just like everyone else. Who would have thought that Konoha's sacred little cherry blossom would have been capable of such things. Kushina gazed upon the scene with sad eyes. They were both dear people to her and even though she had listen to everything that had gone on, there were things that didn't quite add up. The redhead walked out of the crowd, passing Sakura with a sadden smile and moving to stand by Minato. She tugged on his sleeve and gave him a sharp look and shook her head. He read her message easily.
"Get up and go home. We will finish this in private some other time." Minato said before walking away with Kushina in tow.
She heard him. Of course she did, how could she not? All she could hear was Minato's voice. The whispers around her were drowned out by his voice. It wasn't until he left with 'her' did she finally get a grasp of her surroundings. Sakura lifted her head slowly and tossed her head from side to side. There were so many people giving her disapproving looks and glares, using crude words in hush tones against her. She couldn't handle this right now. In a quick move, Sakura disappeared in a word wind of cherry blossom petals.
~~Sakura's Apartment~~
Once home, Sakura fell to the floor instantly bracing herself up against the front the bedroom door. Her chakara nearly depleted, coupled with her non stop working and today's events, the young medic would not be moving from this spot tonight maybe not even tomorrow. Thankfully it was a weekend and with all the commotion she'd forgotten to schedule herself in for the next two days. That was the only good thing to come out of this disastrous day.
The floor was cold but she invited that coolness of it. It was almost comforting in her sorrow. Too much has happen today. Bringing her knees up to her chest and holding them in her arms, she laid her head upon them. Against all better sense, Sakura's mind came rushing back to the incident. She didn't want to think of this, all she wanted to do was sleep for as long as possible. She was incredibly tired.
'Gomen ne, Mina-kun. I told you such a horrible lie. You must hate me now... I can bare it though. I can bare it because I have to.' The medic thought to herself as she buried her face into her arms.
'But I don't want to!' Her mind yelled and the tears finally came. The pinkette's body was quaked violently at her own thoughts.
Her body hurt. She didn't know if this was just built up pain she was feeling from the past month of non stop working that was just hitting her or if it was physically hurting from knowing she'd lost Minato for good. Maybe it was both. The reason didn't matter.
"Itai, Minato. Itai yo..." was her last thing that left her lips before she finally allowed herself to grieve. Tears like a waterfall as she quietly cried herself to sleep.
Sakura awoke from a dreamless sleep. She was grateful for that, better not to have a dream than to have a nightmare. Which she was sure would have happened. Raising her head from her knees, Sakura took a good look around, instantly realizing two things, one, she was still in the hallway with her back pressed up against her bedroom door. Two, her entire body was aching, most likely from the position she slept in last nite.
Sighing to herself, the medic stood despite the harsh cramping of her stiff muscles. She braced herself against the wall for a moment before opening the door to her room and making her way to the bathroom. Flipping on the light switch, Sakura was greeted with the the her sorry appearance. The bags under her eyes were darker in color, eyes red and puffy, and face slightly swollen as well. She looked pitiful. Shaking her head, she proceeded to shower.
Many times the memories of last night threatened to rear its ugly head but she stomped it down every time. It wasn't the time. She wasn't ready to deal with what happened in the slightest. 'Today, all I will do is cook, unpack my home and sleep. Nothing else.' And she meant it. She needed to keep busy in order not to think. Sakura stepped out of the shower, completely drenched from head to toe and took in her appearance once more. She looked better, but still not anywhere near good. Her face wasn't puffy anymore but that has all that changed.
The pinkette sighed, there was nothing she could do about that the rest besides sleep. She towel dried her hair, slipped on some a pair of white shorts and a white cami before walking through the bathroom door that lead to her bedroom. Pursing her lips, she studied her room full of boxes.
"Yoshi! Time to get to work!" She said with forced excitement before tackling the boxes.
~~Noon~~
Unpacking went by way more quickly than she had anticipated. She had even got to the point of rearranging everything in the house twice before giving up. The apartment looked amazing if she did say so, herself. The bedroom's walls were painted light blue which now complemented the white bed frame, dresser, floor length mirror and night stands. It was quite lovely. The living room was painted a cream color, like the rest of the house but was only held a chocolate sectional, coffee table, and match book shelf that was rather large. Lastly, the spare bedroom just had an empty dresser and futons stacked in the closet. There was nothing else to do in the home so she resorted to making herself a late breakfast.
As soon as she sat down to her enjoy her breakfast of eggs, rice and tea, Sakura heard the fury of bangs at her front door and jumped. Immediately Minato's words traveled through her mind. "We will finish this in private some other time." Automatically, she started to panic. She wasn't ready. As she opened her mouth to ask who was on the other side of the door, a voice came through.
"Sakuraaaaa!"
Instantly Sakura sighed in relief and perked up. She knew that voice anywhere. 'Ino.' She thought fondly before opening the door. Ino wasted no time barging in and closing the door.
She plopped herself on the couch, panting and the pinkette rushed to her heavily pregnant friend's side.
"Are you alright Ino? Do you need some water?" Came her concern voice. Ino narrowed her eyes at her friend.
"Tell me it's not true, forehead." Sakura reared her head back in surprise at the blonde's quick recovery.
"What are you talking about Ino-pig?" She gave her friend a confused look.
"Did you cheat on Minato?" The conversation became serious as soon as those words left her lips.
"How do you know about that?" Sakura asked in a barely audible tone.
"How did I know - the entire village knows! They've been positively buzzing with this information all day! Now spill it!"
Her first reaction was shocked. 'Thats right, we fought right in front of the hospital.' It was poor judgement on her part. Embarrassment wouldn't begin to cover the the way she felt. How would she show her face at work? God, she wanted to slam her head against a wall. Again, she was thankful for the not having to work this weekend. She would certainly need time to prepare herself for the amount of attention she would receive from this grave mistake. Ino pinched Sakura's cheek and gave her a hard look.
"Did you?" She insisted.
The the pink headed nin stare at her friend for a moment before sighing and turning to look away. "No. Of course I didn't. But you already knew that, didn't you?"
"Damn right I did, Forehead! I just wanted to see if you would lie to me. So, that brings me to my next question. Why did you tell me the truth and lie to Minato?" Ino pressed on.
"I can't tell him. If I did, he'll never leave me alone."
"I don't get it, Sakura. Why would you want that? I thought you love him? I spoke to you just a few weeks ago - and what is all of this?" She gestured to the apartment. "When you said you moved here, I thought you were making a bad joke. What the heck, Sakura?" Ino was confused. She had to be missing something. Sakura shook her head and sighed.
"It is not something I can tell you right now." The pregnant woman threw her best friend a glare. "Ino, you have to trust me when I say that I cannot tell you right now. Everything that has happened needed to happen."
The blonde opened her mouth to yell at her stupid friend before she saw the look on her face. Sakura looked like she was close to tears. She was slightly trembling and biting her bottom lip as if to not spill forth all of her secrets. Ino smiled sadly at her and placed her hand over Sakura's which were held tightly together in her lap and gave her a comforting squeeze.
"Okay, I will support your decision...no matter how stupid it is. I just wish you would have came up with a better lie, Forehead." Sakura smiled at her words and nodded.
"Thank you Ino-pig." She beamed brightly in response. After that, a short silence followed before Ino began again.
"Okay, I can't take it anymore! Sakura, you look horrible! What the heck? You look like a walking pink corpse. Relationship or not, as your bestest friend in the world, I can't allow you to walk around like this."
Sakura blushed in embarrassment. Of course she knew what she looked like and she could not argue with Ino's description of her. It made her smile instantly, her first genuine in weeks. Ino always made her cheer her up. They had what Sakura called an abusive relationship. They both made crude jokes to each other that would seem harsh to anyone but to them, it was there way of saying they love each other...among other things.
"Hai, hai, Ino-chan. I shall be your doll for today." She giggled when Ino's eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store.
~~3 weeks later~~
The weeks flew by quickly for Sakura, though not without its problems. The first two weeks were a test of her abilities to control herself. More than twice a day she had wanted to punch someone through a wall for the harsh whispers of her. The once praised flower of Konoha was the talk of the town but not in a good way. Of course the nurse had no one to blame but herself for this. She should not have had a fight out in the open and in front of her place of work no less. Shaking her head, she sighed. Sakura should have known better than that.
The crude gossip was bad but the way she was treated was worse. Everyone was short with her. People she called friends turned on her so quickly, it was quite shocking. Work was an especially cruel place to be. Her colleagues were more demanding than usual. Sakura was already a work-a-holic so the demands of a busy hospital but she was doing twice the work load than normally. Of course she would not complain, this is her job but she knew exactly what the others were doing.
They were doing what they could to see her break, complain, maybe even cry or leave work. But this wasn't the academy, the medic would take everything in silence until it all blew over and everyone forgot about this. However, it became that much more difficult when she overheard something that she wished she had not. The two medic trainee's talk, Sakura still remembered the conversation, word for word.
Sakura was walking down a corridor of the hospital to her next patient when she heard her name being called from the room a few feet from her. She was abot to walked in until she the chatter continued.
"Can you believe she has the nerve to show her face here?" Sakura heard a female voice say.
"I know, she's the worst! I thought Minato would lose it after what she did!" Said another women. She later learned it was two nurses who had trained under her.
"Guess little miss perfect wasn't so perfect." The nurses giggles.
"Clearly, she has poor taste too. I mean, who would cheat on Minato? He's gorgeous, powerful and kind. Minato would have been better off with Kushina."
"Huh? I thought he was with her. I see them together every night."
"Seriously?!"
"Yeah, I live a few blocks away from Minato and I always see her walking into his apartment or leaving it. I assumed they were dating."
"Wow, he moves quickly. Well, there goes my chances. I suppose the old saying was right: The best way to get over your ex to date someone else."
That day, she almost broke. She knew what she said to Minato was an unforgivable act in his eyes, but she never thought he would move on so quickly. Did he really care so little for her that he was able to move on so quickly? '...And with her?' He knew how she felt about Kushina. Was he trying to get back at her? Maybe this was her punishment? It didn't matter because all Sakura could remember was running back to her office and crying her eyes out.
Everyone used to respect her and treated her kindly but now... let's just say that staying home had crossed her mind more than once. 'I deserved this for being so stupid. Gosh! Why did things end up so bad?' She berated herself once more for the makeshift excuse she had used with Minato. Sakura sighed again.
'Maybe I should take a break and go on a mission. I haven't been on one in months and relieving some stress sounds great right about now. Being away from Konoha will be good for me.'
Sakura knew she was being a coward right now. Of course, Sakura was never one to run away but so what? She didn't cause this problem. Why did she have to deal with a problem that she didn't cause. If she had to suffer, for something she didn't even do, then heck yeah; she'd rather run from it. None of this was her fault. She didn't cause this problem and it seems, she's only making it worse. So instead of making this problem any harder on herself, Sakura would just leave for a while. Hopefully, Hokage-sama would will have a mission for her.
~~Hokage office~~
"Hokage-sama."
Sakura knelt in the middle of the room with her head bowed in respect. She had left work early, which is a big 'no-no' in Sakura's rule book. She had been breaking a lot of rules lately but she was just so excited to possibly get a mission. Seeing the Sandaime was always pleasant. The older and was always sweet to her, showing a bit of favoritism every now and then.
"Sakura-chan! How are you? I have not seen you in a while." Lord third gave her a closed eyed smile.
"I am well, thank you for asking. I came to ask for a mission." Sakura stood and returned the smile. The hokage peer at her for a moment before closing his eyes and sighing.
"What rank mission are you looking to undertake?"
"S-rank, only. Preferably something far away from Konoha."
"Sakura, you wound me. Is the village such a bad place?" He faked his hurt and it made her giggle.
"Of course not, Hokage-sama. But I must admit, running the hospital has left me a bit rusty and craving a bit of excitement. Beside, missions pay more."
There was a long pause as he thought for a moment before responding. "Well, you're in luck. I just happen to have a 2 man S-rank mission. I was going to assign someone else to this but..."
"I'll take it Hokage-sama!" She yelled out before blushing when the older man before her chuckled.
"Good good. Here are the mission details. You will meet you partner at sundown in front of the village gate."
"Hai!" She said, accepting the scroll the Hokage handed to her.
"Dismissed."
Doing a simple hand seal, Sakura disappear, leaving behind a flurry of cherry blossom petals. As soon as she departed, the hokage glanced at the window. As if on cue, a figure flashed in and stood in front of the old man. They stared at each other for a moment before the Hokage threw a mission scroll at him.
"I trust you have heard everything."
The nin nodded his head as he caught the scroll effortlessly.
"Good. You are dismissed as well."
As the nin turned to leave, he was stopped once he heard the Hokage call out to him. "Oh and before I forget, this Hiraishin kunai of yours is very efficient." He said while looking down at the specially crafted kunai in his hand.
"A bit of advice; never stop searching for answers." The hokage said in a short dismissal. No later did Minato depart from the same way that he came.
Reappearing in her apartment, she quickly ran to her bathroom in her bedroom. Strippping free of her clothes, she took blazing hot shower. The water pelted her skin and burned just a bit but she was to excited to care. Something was finally going right for her. Besides, she didn't know how long it would be before she could enjoy the comforts of a hot bath. Naturally, she spent the next 3 hours enjoying the water until it ran cold.
The pinkette stepped out of the shower with skin just as pink as her hair. "Ah, such are the perks of being having a hot bath." She giggled to herself. This was the Sakura that had been gone the past few months. Warm and happy. She was turning back into her old self and it felt good. Squeezing out the excess water from her hair, she walked out of the bathroom and began to pack her pouch for the mission.
Donning a black skin tight, long sleeved romper that stopped two inches beneath the curve of her bum. Long black thigh high tights and black calf high nin boots, wrapping her 'hitae ate' around her left thigh. Lastly, she put on her jounin vest and tied her hair into a low ponytail at the base of her head, leaving her long bangs to frame her face.
" Yoshi!" She nodded her head in approval. This felt so right, being back in her nin gear. She had admittedly spent too much time in the hospital. Hopefully, her skills hasn't suffered much as a result. Smiling to herself, Sakura grabbed her a small grey pack filled with weapons and attached it to her hip before making her way to the bedroom window.
The sky was a burnt orange, signaling that day coming to an end. It was almost time to find out who her new partner was. She had had only one partner for S-ranked missions and that was Minato. 'Now that we are broken up, I don't suppose he will be there.' The pink headed nin thought to herself sadly. Unfortunately for her, images on Minato and Kushina together into her mind and it pissed her off instantly.
'Fine, he thinks I had an affair but did he really just have to go to move on like I never meant anything?! Did he ever care about me...?' Sakura shook her head furiously to get rid of those unwanted thoughts. For the love of Kami! Was there no getting away from this? She hadn't even left the village and yet these thoughts were plaguing her. Sighing, the medic took a deep breath and decided to look at her mission scroll. She hadn't even looked at it since the old man gave it to her, which meant that she had no idea what crude act she was about to commit in the name of her village. Reading over the details, it was surprising to say the least. After all, she had never had a seduction mission before.
A/N: I thought about continuing for another couple of paragraph but cliff hangers are what keeps everyone interested! Thanks everyone that has reviewed so far! Keep the love coming and I'll keep updating!