"What do you love more, Sasuke?! Me, or my ability to bear you children?!"
There was no answer. It was answer enough.
Sakurai Haru-kun was in love with Uchiha Satsuki from the very first day. But
from the day she slipped through his guard and landed a punch on his jaw that
threw ass-first in the mud and made him the laughingstock of his male peers,
he decided she would be his rival too.
It took him seven years, but the day he won he asked her out on a date.
The next day she won again, but after that she said yes.
"... Sakura, leave my nailpolish alone."
Perhaps it was because they were two in the snake's mouth -- Sasuke tightly wrapped around Sakura's limp body, cursing himself for the impulse that made him grab her, the inability to let her die -- but when they materialized again and he crawled past his summon's teeth it was nowhere he'd ever been. Vaulted ceilings, damp air, grey stone. There was another dead serpent, though, big as Manda -- dead and rotting, and a large stain of blood and ink on the old stone floor.
A soft chuckle. "Don't worry. I'll be gentle."
Sasuke growled in outrage and pressed Sakura against the wall. "That's
my line."
"... Do I really have to say it?" Sasuke said.
Sakura planted a fist on her hip and cocked her chin, a wide smirk on her face.
"Yes."
"Fine." A sigh. "You've gotten strong, Sakura."
He rubbed the bruise on his jaw, half-sulking and half-rueful. She reached up
to it, and he leaned into her hand with a little sigh.
"Yes, deep and large; it's a nice bruise indeed," she said with professional
appreciation.
"I'll vouch on the depth of it," he muttered. It twinged every time
he opened his mouth.
Sakura leaned in and dropped a smug little kiss on his mouth. "I'm not
healing it, by the way."
Sasuke growled half-heartedly. He guessed she deserved to brag for a little
while.
"...As long as you don't heal those either," he said. Then he wrapped
an arm around her waist to reel her in and left bite marks on her shoulder.
"Sasuke-kun, you know I love you. Don't you?"
Sprawled on his back, Sasuke blinked up at Sakura, vaguely embarrassed and somewhat
puzzled. Her tone had been... strange. Then she was straddling his hips, which
was a little distracting.
"I would do anything for you... But if you destroy my silk panties again,
I will end you."
She shifted in his lap. "Mm-hmm," he hummed with a hint of smugness,
hands traveling up her thighs.
Sakura leaned down, so that her hair fell against his cheeks like a curtain,
and her voice turned into a purr. "Do you want to know how I will end you?
I will take those destroyed panties..."
"Mmm?"
"... And wrap them around your neck and strangle you to death."
"--gghk."
She grinned at him with disturbing cheerfulness. "But I'm sure it won't
happen again, dearest! After all, it was an accident."
"-can't breathe-"
"Yes, that's an accident too."
Sakura stood at his side as he lit the incense, staring ahead so she wouldn't
see any wetness in her husband's eyes.
When they went home she draped herself against his back and she didn't say anything,
so he could keep pretending she didn't know he was crying.
She dug her hands in his hair, took fistfuls of thick inky locks, and she pulled
his head back. He was gorgeous, throat arched -- offered -- eyes dark with an
intensity that went past desire straight into need.
She kissed him with bruising force and pushed herself all the way down.
He'd noticed she had grown up, slender and quick, long white legs, perky breasts,
but he didn't start actively wanting her until she planted a boot in the middle
of his chest and slammed him through two feet of concrete. Standing over him
with the sun behind her head, he could see nothing but strength and pride and
that skirt slowly fluttering down.