mint limeade

mint sprigs to garnish

"What do you think about meeting my parents?"

Sakura stopped zooming in on a particularly gruesome murder scene on her phone.

It was bleeding into closing hours at the old bowling alley and the only people left were a couple teenagers at the end lanes and a small family settling a last score—she was right about the carpets being similar to the ones at the arcade, but these ones wouldn't suffer from a vacuuming or a deep cleaning.

She eyed a dark stain near her foot she knew was blood that couldn't be completely scrubbed out. The carpet wouldn't suffer from being completely replaced either.

"I mean, Casey's already met you and likes you a hell of a lot more than she does most people and I know Mom's going to love you."

She re-zoomed on the picture, focusing on the blood gushing from an artery in the shoulder. Meeting parents wasn't as novel as the idea to finish her schooling in the states; Tsume had liked her enough. When she first met Kiba, she'd be over at his house a couple times a week amidst more than a handful of dogs and his mother's and sister's jovial, booming voices. They welcomed her with open arms and wouldn't stop mussing up her hair when they found out she was the reason for Kiba's rising grades.

The last time she'd been at the Inuzuka house was right before their first encounter with Danzo.

(She wondered if Tsume would still smile at her if she saw her again.)

"Dad's, uh... I don't really know what'll happen with Dad. I've told you he's kind of a hardass and hard to please and I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not you but, uh, if you meet Mom you've got no choice but to meet him and. Uh." A pause. "I'm not really selling my case, am I?"

And Shibi had lost his warmth for her and Kiba a long time ago. She didn't blame him.

"If you were a door to door salesman, I would be reprimanding you on not meeting your quota," she responded dryly. Leon's laughter rang clearly through her left earbud as she slowly swiped her screen. Her focus zipped to the twisted leg bend opposite of how the knee was meant to and the tibia erupting from the skin through muddled red fluids. But on a few of the chunks of flayed skin she noted meticulously needled ink. "You don't need to explain more. I'll meet them."

"Really?"

"Mm." She zoomed out, deleted the photo, and pulled up her call screen. "Just let me know when."

"I'll talk to them tonight, but Mom'll probably have you over for dinner as soon as physically possible. She's an okay cook, but I can't say she won't burn anything."

"Your quota return is lower than I could ever imagine."

She could already envision the pout on his lips. "Sakuraaaaa..."

The door to one of the back offices swung open and she barely cast it a glance as she pulled her earbud case out of her pants pocket.

"Keep whining if you want, but I have to go. I'll see you tomorrow."

"See you, babe!" Came his chipper voice, and she raised an incredulous brow at the new nickname. "I'll text you later."

She plucked the bud out of her ear and placed it back in the case, and the shadows that came to loom over her only spoke when the END CALL was clear on her screen.

"Did you find anything?"

"Yeah." Sakura looked up. "It was a murder."

Kakuzu's eye twitched. "Prolonged exposure to Hidan has subjected you to his brand of stupidity."