Preventing The Inevitable

Chapter 27

Sakura didn't know what to expect when Yūta started talking to her.

She had been meticulously observing his actions this past week, looking for any kind of opening in his mask of feigned innocence. She knew that he had likely taken some kind of oath of silence when he joined the ANBU forces. Yet, watching him deceive his family made her feel a strange, heavy kind of emotion.

Was it disgust that she felt when he would tell lies to their faces? Or was it fear that sunk into her stomach whenever she noticed herself almost believing one of his lies? Fear that he was hiding much more from her than she knew.

Or, perhaps, it was uneasiness that would overcome her whenever she looked at him. Him—the brother she never had. Perhaps she felt like this because Yūta was the embodiment of the anxiety that she felt living in this parallel universe. The epitome of the changes she had encountered so far, living alongside her family in her house, eating meals right across from her, and laughing with her mother. 'You don't belong here!'she sometimes wanted to shout at him. Drive him out of her perfect life, where everything was just as she remembered it.

But that wasn't quite right, was it? Because it was she who didn't belong here. She was intruding on his life.

So she would bounce between two states of mind. One, where she tried to accept him as a part of her family, come to terms with the fact not everything could be the same. Tell herself that this was far more than she could have hoped for.

And another, where she felt like the disturbance his existence created was the source of all her problems. She knew it wasn't true. And yet she found herself wanting to accuse him of being the root of it all—her weak body, her too-small chakra pool, her dead father, her inability to change anything, her anxiety. Occasionally, she caught herself wondering if perhaps something would shift if he were gone. Perhaps everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be if only she got rid of him.

So when Yūta suddenly approached her with an entirely new topic, she wasn't sure what to expect.

It started off normal, though.

—

It was late in the evening. The two of them had eaten dinner in a comfortable silence, Sakura not thinking it worth the trouble to break it.

"Hey, Sacchan?"

"Yeah?" She asked as she combed through her hair. It had gotten tangled up during today's training after she repeatedly tripped while going through her katas.

Damn leaves.

Yūta didn't look up from the tangerines he was peeling as he continued to speak.

"What have you been up to these days? Made any new friends yet?"

"It's been fine." Sakura replied. Yūta looked at her expectantly. "...I made a friend."

He perked up. "Oh, really? That's great! Maybe you can introduce me to your friend sometime."

"Why?"

"Why not?" He tilted his head to the side. "I've got to meet my little sister's friends."

"I never meet your friends." She responded drily. She could probably get away with being rather unenthusiastic by chalking it up to exhaustion. But just in case, she added, "And we'll have less time to play."

Yūta raised an eyebrow. "Well, you never ask to meet my friends."

"You have friends, Nīchan?" She asked, wide-eyed. And her surprise was genuine.