𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘 || sasusaku

Chapter Twenty-Three: Something Peculiar

Sakura admired the newly embroidered crest on one of her clothes. Later that afternoon right after she sign out of the Hospital, she and Sasuke went to the embroidery shop to pick her clothes. The owner of the shop was an old woman, who, despite her most probably senile mentality, still recognized Sasuke.

Or so Sakura thought. When the old woman approached Sasuke with a look of familiarity. "Ah, you have grown up into a fine young man," the old woman had said.

Sasuke nodded and stood awkwardly as the old woman chuckled whole-heartedly. She started to talk about the past like it was just yesterday, you know the typical hobby of old people talking about the past, reliving memories.

"I remembered your mother, Mikoto, used to bring you here all the time while she was pregnant with your younger brother to have his clothes embroidered with the Uchiha crest. How's your younger brother by the way, Itachi-kun?"

Sasuke suddenly stiffened and Sakura noticed it right away. At the mention of his older brother, and of all the possibilities, the old woman had to mistaken Sasuke for Itachi.

"Ah, you were so young back then and I was an old woman still. Do you remember all the wise things that came out of your little mouth?" The old woman laughed again, the sound of an old person's laugh.

"You always wanted a younger brother–"

"Kikyo-san, I am not Itachi," Sasuke said, cutting off the old woman even before she could blabber everything she remembered of his older brother. Though Sasuke doesn't mean to sound rude. He just simply doesn't want to be mistaken as Itachi. They look nothing alike, is what Sasuke believes. Physical attributes aside, his older brother was far more talented than him.

"Kikyo-san," Sakura said, her tone much softer than Sasuke's firm one. "He is Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi's younger brother."

Kikyo-san looked at Sasuke again, her eyes that Sasuke believed was already blurry enough to have mistaken him for Itachi, blinked a few times.

"Younger brother?" Kikyo-san looked at Sasuke again before proceeding to walk towards the table where Sakura's clothes were placed. She passed Sasuke who definitely heard the old woman muttering something.

"But I swear I could see Itachi-kun in him," she muttered.

Sasuke had been quiet all the way back to the apartment. When Sakura excused herself to the bedroom she left the Uchiha in the living room. As the pinkette admired the newly embroidered crest, she felt a stirring warmth flood in her chest. She traced the patterns, the red and white fan that symbolizes the wind that will strengthen the Uchiha's will of fire. To think that from now on she'll wear the crest for the rest of her life send the pinkette in a bliss where sparks of joy radiated through her smile.

_____

The following week had been the usual. Sakura would go to the hospital every morning, she would do her duties as a Doctor and Director of the children health clinic, by evening she would walk out of the hospital to see Sasuke waiting patiently outside. Even Sakura's colleagues got used to Sasuke always waiting outside every night and the fact that Sakura is no longer wearing her family crest says a lot about their relationship and she doubt the whole Village already knew about it.

It occurred to her one evening as they walked back to her apartment something that she's been curious of.

"Sasuke-kun, what do you do during the day while I'm at the Hospital?" She asked. Sasuke has been staying in Konoha for a while now and Sakura is afraid boredom might caught him and he'd ask the Hokage for a mission.