Ain't That a Kick in The Head?

10: intermission i (the slap)

With a loud thud, Sasuke lands in the salt plain on his ass.

"I was going to be fine," he hisses, batting away the hand that Itachi offers him. His brother shrugs and steps back. "Stop hijacking my eyes!"

"Sorry," Itachi says, sounding not sorry at all. "You need to have a plan in terms of how you will interact with him."

"I know."

"You must be prepared to answer the questions he's asking you."

"I know!" Sasuke snaps. He pushes himself up off the ground. The tiny salt crystals in its surface press into his hand.

"I just-- I don't know what the hell I'm supposed to do here!"

"Don't kill him?" Itachi suggests. His genius, infallible older brother looks utterly clueless. "Konoha won't trust you--"

"This isn't about their trust," he interjects, "this is about a situation I have no idea how to handle because of you! This is your fault!"

"I know and I'm sorry." Itachi sighs. "It might be better to talk to someone else about this, like your sensei."

Sasuke scrunches up his nose. "Ew. I guess that's still better than taking love advice from you."

It's only because he's watching Itachi closely that he notices the way his brother cringes.

"Guess your time's up," Itachi says abruptly, and everything spins into a sickening blur of blue and black.

*

Sasuke wakes up back in the real world with a pounding headache and a crick in his neck, sprawled across a futon in the shared male room. He can tell it's very early in the morning from the way the birds have begun chirping and pale blue light's started to filter through the room's darkness. He sits up with a grunt and sees the soft breathing of his team members.

He moves to get up and discovers Naruto firmly attached himself to his ankle. Sighing, he pries his leg out from his iron grip and slips over to the door.

Sasuke really wants to go soak in those damn hot springs.

Life has been so stressful lately. Between completing his revenge by killing Itachi– which turned out to not actually have completed his revenge because he's got a village to level now –this trite mission, and this fucking love nonsense, Sasuke's had every muscle in his body tensed up.

He only realizes it now that he has the opportunity to relax.

He slides the door shut as quietly as he conceivably can, then he uses everything he's ever learned in training about stealth to sneak down the hallway toward the entrance of the baths.

"Ow!"

"Shit!"

It's way too early to be running into stupid, inattentive people in the hallway.

He hops backwards and narrowly avoids slamming into the wall. A steady stream of increasingly foul curses comes flying from the mouth of the girl who'd stepped on his foot.

A familiar girl, apparently.

Sakura rubs her forehead and then looks down with a sigh. On the ground are the clothes she wore yesterday, rumpled and unfolded from when she'd dropped them as they collided.

"Watch it," he grouses. Then his curiosity gets the better of him and he asks, "what the hell are you doing?"

Sakura blinks and her face turns very, very pink. She pointedly avoids looking at him, instead choosing to bashfully turn away and stare at the distant doors to the hot springs. "I...uh, forgot some things in the locker room yesterday."

Then she somehow turns redder and tucks a lock of pink hair behind her ear.

"Hn."

She currently wears a borrowed yukata, like him. Only except she tied hers loosely, hastily. It falls ever so slightly down, exposing her collarbone as she drops to pick up her clothes. They're the same ones she wore yesterday, he notices. Right down to the dirt splatter they'd all got from the muddy Fire Country border roads.   

"What the hell are those?!" Sasuke exclaims. There are some horrifying, gigantic, purple bruise things dappling her otherwise pale neck and shoulder. "Did someone try to strangle you to get to the client?"

Sakura hesitates for a second, then slowly rises back to her full height and snaps, "What the hell do you mean, huh? What's your damn problem? You pervert!" And she slaps him across the face.

The force is enough to send him hurtling through the shouji doors and back against the back wall of the shared male room.

Fucking ow. 

So much for subtlety. And for his bath.

"I'm so sorry!" Sakura cries.

Everyone is up but the client, since they're all shinobi worth their salt. Unfortunately that means Sasuke's pain is no longer just his own, and he finds himself encircled by the entirety of Team Seven with the inclusion of Kazuhiko the bodyguard.

Naruto, standing just over him, looks particularly baffled. "What the hell did you even do to make Sakura hit you like that, bastard? You're... you! She's like, in love with you, you know!"

He sits up abruptly and spits out a mouthful of blood. "I have no idea."

Hovering at the edge of the doors, Sakura stares out at the female room, situated opposite to theirs. There's a pensiveness to her features, tinged with that certain adoration he's seen directed at him throughout their lives. If there's one thing that he's certain of now, it's that her desire isn't directed at him.