Love me, love me not || Sasusaku

Love me, love me not

One shot #5 of CTHFFA series!!! It has been on a long hiatus

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Spring has yet to arrive in some parts. Sasuke wonders if it has reached the boundaries of Konoha. It's not just a fleeting thought that crosses his mind like a wave washing onshore, but he can't help it in the place he is standing in. The village he travelled to this time looks as if it's laid with flowers. As if it's nothing but a harlequin sea of petals, as if it's the scent hauling the wind, as if dawn and dusk have weaved upon the land. It's too vibrant for Sasuke who, in his head-to-toe black apparel, stands out like a sore thumb. Sasuke moves his head a full 180, before grimacing. Houses line up on the sidelines of a road which forks out of sight, cherry blossoms threaded behind and between houses. Behind the houses lie the multicolor fields radiating the fruity, sleep-inciting scents. Definitely not the kind of place he would like to visit. Women love this sort of thing. Sakura's friend did; she had a shop, Sasuke recalls. Sakura too—her smile would be sunnier than this whole place. But for him, it sends shivers up his fingers and down his neck as the flowery breeze, cold under the morning sun, graces his face. He craves to flee, but he has a mission. Kakashi could have sent someone else, maybe a woman; they like these things, he emphasizes again. With a frustrated sigh, he resumes walking down the flowery path.

***

"Thank you for your service."

Sasuke nods in response and casts a scrutinous gaze at the shop. A pine roof tilts down the front, below which the counter in mahogany is set, flower stems and petals littered on it, not for adornment. The setting is much like the Yamanaka shop back in Konoha except this one's open from the behind, leading to a much larger land distributed equally by highlands, each piece a distinct tincture. The shop is glued to a smaller house on the left through a corridor at the door of which sits the girl who had his awareness. Maybe twelve, or thirteen, the girl eyes him with a flower in hand—it's an odd one, yellow with brown insides.

"It's a Pansy." The girl tells, and Sasuke perks up to find the girl stroking its petals. There's something unique about the way she holds it, someone else must not have noticed, someone like Naruto would never, but it reaches his eyes. The way she holds a flower is much more subtle than his hold on a kunai. Like it's a piece of her.

Sasuke doesn't answer back and moves along to wait for his order to be ready.

***

"Would you like to play a game?" The girl sweeps her skirt before perching down beside Sasuke. Sunlight filters down the petals to form drop-like contours on the ground, the fallen cherry blossoms like trinkets. The girl was strange, Sasuke had calculated the once he first saw her, but she has to be if she followed him here.

"No."

"Oh, come on." She scrunches her nose, facing him, her hands by her sides, making it appear like she is offsetting her body on them. "I'm bored. And you're doing nothing better."

"Don't you have a shop to run?"

She scowls at him, out of words before she grabs a petal between her fingers, the same way she carried the previous one—the Pansy.

"Anyway," she proceeds, "let me show you how to play—" Sasuke is about to shoo her away before she cuts him off "—my friends are all out on missions. I'm the only one who can't go. Keep me company. Your order will take time."

He frowns, wanting to say 'it's none of his business', but something in the girl's eyes tells him not to. She has cherry eyes, he heeds.

"See here." She holds a flower. "You just have to pluck one petal at a time while saying 'she loves me, she loves me not'. The thing you say on the last petal is the truth."