Faceless Desire

Chapter 10-Mutual Insecurity

"Oh, my poor child!" Mikoto Uchiha cries, dabbing her eyes with a tissue while sitting in a chair beside Sasuke's bed at his condo. She's feeding him and fretting like the overbearing mother she's always been.

"It's just a hairline fracture, Mom. I'm not dead."

Itachi made his little brother go straight home after leaving the hospital, where the teary-eyed woman was waiting to take care of her son. She narrows her eyes with a pretty frown, "Hush and eat so you can rest."

The youngest Uchiha brother barely holds back rolling his eyes because she'll only pester him further. He says nothing.

A satisfied tug pulls at Mikoto's lips as she admires his childish pout, feeding him another bite, "Your father says you'll be working from home for the rest of the week while you adjust to wearing a sling."

"Who told him? Itachi?"

Fuck. That's just what Sasuke needs, his father thinking lowly of him for getting injured on the job.

"Actually, I did," she continues before he can interrupt, "If you're not careful, you could hurt your arm further, and then you'll be wearing a cast and not just a brace. You don't want to have to have surgery, do you?"

After Mikoto leaves, Sasuke groans, flexing his fingers as he stares at his injured arm. This is all one big inconvenience. It's the busiest time of the year, and he's nursing an injury to his dominant arm. The tension in his brow lightens when he recalls Sakura's trembling hand in his earlier, the way she refused to show him her face because she was crying. He sighs, running his good hand through his hair. Obtaining this injury is far better than what would've happened if he hadn't stepped in.

Sasuke's feeling weird.

The way his pink-haired assistant looked and behaved earlier is unfamiliar and off-putting. She was released before him, so she stopped by his room. With the most solemn look on her face, she'd bowed low and apologized profusely. He was so stunned at that moment that he could only nod in acceptance. Then, the woman left without another word, her mother thanking him one last time.

Unintentionally, he and Itachi overheard Sakura's mother fretting but couldn't decipher her exact condition. Is she seriously injured? Will she be returning to work tomorrow? Wait. Why is he so worried? It must be because Karin is out this week. If both assistants are gone while he's also injured, the office will be a wreck upon his return. The D.O.O. is relieved Sakura wasn't run down by that car. That's the only thing he knows for a fact.

A notification buzzes his phone, and he picks it up to see a message from Haruki, 'Something odd happened today.'

'What's up?'

The typing bubble shows for an extremely long time. So much so that when only one sentence shows up, Sasuke is taken off guard, 'I'm starting to see a coworker as more than a coworker.'

The Uchiha man is stunned because other than confirming that neither is married or dating, they haven't talked about their love lives. 'What made you suddenly realize that?' Honestly, he has no idea how to approach this sort of conversation. It feels like he's on thin ice. One wrong move, and he'll fall through and make things awkward.

'I don't want to go into details, but something happened, and now I'm starting to think I might've misunderstood them all this time. Maybe we won't be friends, but I've treated them almost like an enemy since meeting them.'

Oh, so he doesn't mean romantically. He just means he's suddenly considered this person an actual human being with a life of their own. As awful as that sounds, Sasuke's gone through it repeatedly. It's easier to see coworkers as just that. If he considers their life, family, and well-being, making executive decisions without bias will be more complicated.