Slowly, and unwillingly, he opened his eyes, blinking a couple of times in order to feign sleepiness. He released his grasp around her, and sat upright, folding his hands in his lap. He could feel her eyes on him, but he ignored it, remaining silent. It was only when she moved to leave did he say anything.
"When are you going to be moving your things?" he asked her, his face turned away from her.
"Hopefully this morning," she replied serenely as her weight on the mattress disappeared.
"Hn," he acknowledged in reply, not moving from where he sat on the bed. His mind was clouded with dark thoughts as he listened to her grab some things from around the room, he was in a foul mood as the prospect that today was the day that Sakura's father would be arriving seemed to connect with him.
"Don't make any breakfast for me," he told to her just as she was about to exit the room, "I'm not hungry."
"You should eat something anyways though," she told him concernedly.
"I don't want anything."
She paused a moment longer in the doorway before letting out another sigh and departing from the room.
"Quite the nice place he has," Sakura's father commented as his daughter led him through the back door, "Quite spacious."
Sakura smiled at her father and gave a little nod, "It's a nice house. I rather like it."
"Well, don't grow too attached to it," he said off-handedly from behind; Inner Sakura cracked her knuckles.
Going around the corner into the living room, then proceeding down the hall, Sakura led her father down the hall to third room on the right, the room that she had prepared for him. Pushing open the door, she stepped aside so her father could enter. The room was as big as Sasuke's but had evidently been a study at some point, as there was a desk and a bookshelf inside; a rolling chair was at the desk and there was no closet in the room. Sakura had rolled out another futon in the middle of the room for her father to sleep on.
"This'll be your room," she told him pleasantly, "The bathroom is right across the hallway, and, as you can see, I've set out some towels for you on the desk there."
Her father gave a nod of understanding and set down the backpack that had his things in them. "Where do you sleep?"
Behind her back, Sakura clenched her fist to maintain her patience and replied pleasantly, "The room at the end of the hall on the left." She knew what his next question would be, so she answered it before he could ask, "Sasuke's room is the one next to this one, on our right."
He gave an approving nod, "I'm glad that you're in different rooms now. How long ago did that happen?"
"Quite a while ago," she lied easily, inwardly angered by her father's lack of trust in both her and Sasuke, "Have you had any lunch yet?"
"No, actually, I haven't," her father stated as they both left the room.
"I'll make something then," she replied lightly.
"Where is Sasuke, by the way?" her father asked casually, "I haven't seen him around."
"Oh, he's out training with Naruto, this morning," Sakura replied lightly, "Sometimes he and Naruto go training together when I have something that needs to be done."
Out of the corner of her eye she saw her father give another approving nod. She knew that her father was only worried for her, and that he meant well, but she found it offending how much he distrusted Sasuke, which to her was like distrusting herself. But she had to remind herself that Sasuke was right, it was only for one night, and after that they should not run into any problems if they met her father's standards. It was only until tomorrow—yet tomorrow seemed ages away.
Sasuke stood for a moment outside the back porch door; his hand lay carefully on the grain of the wooden door, feeling the texture beneath his sensitive palm. He had expanded his senses outwards, and within the house he could sense Sakura's familiar chakra signature, and another one—an unfamiliar one. If he were to hazard a guess though, he would say that it was most likely Sakura's father who was the owner of the other chakra signature in the house. Sasuke growled audibly to himself before reaching for the handle and opening the door.
Casual conversation drifted down the hallway in Sasuke's direction as he kicked off his shoes, putting his hand on the wall to maintain balance. He stepped up into the house and was about to proceed down the hall when his toes collided with something rather big and bulky. He stumbled slightly and reflexively his hand went to the wall to regain his balance. Having recovered his steadiness, he muttered a quiet curse to himself and knelt down next to what he had just tripped over. It was a pair of large shoes—Sakura's father's shoes.
Putting them neatly aside so that he wouldn't trip on them later, he took the familiar path to the kitchen, the conversation becoming coherent to his ears. The topic was nothing of importance to him, so he paid no heed to it and entered the room. From his senses, he could tell that Sakura was sitting where she normally sat, across from the place he sat at the table. But the way her voice was projected, he could tell that she was not facing towards him like she normally would have been, but was in fact turned to the right, where her father was sitting on the side of the table.
.
.
.
‼️If you want to access advanced chapters, wait no more and subscribe to my Ko-Fi, where you can buy books in completely downloadable PDF format.‼️
☕️ko-fi.com/skyarc☕️