Naruto One-Shot (Yaoi)

Your tears

By Aria Illusin

"Stop crying, it's annoying."

"Well it's not like you need to be here," the girl bit out, raising her head from her arms for a second to pin the intruder with a rather fierce glare. "Go. Away."

He really should have. There was little to no point in sticking around if the girl was going to just ignore him and cry, and he'd never been very good with kids. Or girls. Or kids who were girls. In fact, given his history, there should have been no reason why he'd stuck around. It wasn't as if he planned on comforting her. But something in the dejected slump of her shoulders and the way she seemed to cringe, as if to fill up the least amount of space as possible, reached out to him until he found himself grudgingly sitting down on the Academy back steps with her.

For long moments there was silence. He was contented to just sit there, used to the quietude that he'd long since grown accustomed to on his A and B-rank missions, as her fierce sobs became softer ones, then mere sniffles.

"I got made fun of," she said by way of explanation, her face still buried in her arms.

The words came out rather muffled, but he heard them anyway, and waited, knowing she would probably talk again. Like an enemy shinobi in interrogation, it appeared the silence made her uncomfortable, and she found the need to fill it with her own chatter.

"Th-they...they said I had a big forehead. And that I stood out too much to be a good shinobi. And," her voice grew softer, embarrassed, "And that Sa-I mean...the guy I like would...would never like me back."

Her voice wavered on the last words, threatening more waterworks, and Uchiha Itachi, child prodigy and heir to the prestigious Uchiha clan, found himself feeling the overwhelming urge to stop that from happening.

"Let me see."

She froze, stiffening at his words. Her head rose up from her arms, showing a couple of inches of forehead and two, very puffy, emerald green eyes. "What do you mean?" she asked, her sullen tone tempered by an edge of curiosity that was strangely amusing.

Itachi was, by now, having second thoughts about his decision to speak to her, but he had no real choice but to answer her now as the girl fixed him with those intelligent, ivy-green eyes of hers. He made a noncommittal note in the back of her throat, but she seemed undaunted so, with a mental sigh, he explained.

"You said they made fun of your forehead. Let me see."

"Are you going to-,"

"No, I do not make fun of people," Itachi answered sharply, cutting her off.

She glared at him momentarily, but after a short, internal struggle, she straightened, her lower lip threatening to pout as she rubbed out her tears.

She did, in fact, have a somewhat larger-than-normal forehead, the feature actually made more obvious by the bangs she used to try to cover it up. But it seemed to him like it was actually her sensitivity to the feature that made others tease her for it. It was nothing as heinous as she seemed to believe.

"It's too big, isn't it."

Itachi fixed her with a serious look. "No. You'll grow into it. A lot of people have features like that they end up growing into when they're older."

Her eyes widened in surprise, lower lip trembling. "Really?"

The Uchiha male nodded. "My cousin, Shisui, needed to grow into his ears. That's a lot more noticeable than a forehead. But..."

It was going to be a bit of a wrench, but he had plenty of ties for his hair back at home. Deftly tugging the tie from his own, jet-black hair, he pulled back her unruly bangs with surprising gentleness and tied it back so that he could see her large, doe-like aspen-leaf eyes, without the rosy-pink curtain they'd been hidden behind.

"Th-thanks..."

"And, shinobi work doesn't just rely on concealment, though that's an important part of things," Itachi added. "There are ways to hide distinguishing features like hair color, but a good shinobi may not need to."

"And...and," the girl's cheeks grew pink, a color that clashed with her hair and her red-rimmed eyes, but she forced herself to continue, "B-boys?"

This was definitely not a topic of conversation Itachi was comfortable discussing with a girl who looked like she was maybe nine years old, especially since, at fourteen, Itachi didn't think he was really qualified to have this sort of a talk with her. After all, he wasn't a girl. He wouldn't know. But...

"There are other boys."

Her eyes went huge, as if the thought didn't even fit into her head. "B-but..."

Itachi silenced her with a look. "If you don't wish to believe that, that is your decision. Perhaps this boy you like is the only boy in your mind, but there are other boys." He rose to his feet, the girl following him up as he turned to go.

"W-wait!"

He turned, surprised by the loudness of her voice and the deep flush of her elfin features.

"Thank...thank you," she blurted, with a shy look in her eyes. "Thank you..."

"Itachi," he supplied, surprising even himself by answering her unspoken question.

"Sakura," she answered, her shyness melting a little as her lips curved into a tiny smile. "Thank you, Itachi-san."

He didn't smile in response, but he couldn't help the tiny spark of warmth that blossomed in his chest at her words. "You're welcome, Sakura," he replied calmly, "And, try not to cry any more. Things like boys and your forehead aren't worth your tears."

=*~*~*=

"Stop crying, it's annoying."

She stopped then, to smack him one as she hastily tried to rub out the tears that continued to trickle down her cheeks. "Itachi, can't you just let me wallow in the romance of this for a minute?!" she grumbled, even as a helpless giggle rose to her lips and she found herself simultaneously laughing and crying and generally making a fool of herself in public. "I swear, you don't have a romantic bone in your body."

"As a matter of fact, Sakura, I do, but I'd much rather discuss the anatomy of my bones later and discuss the question I just asked you now. The question you have completely avoided answering for the last three minutes with your crying."

Sakura smacked him again with a glare at his words, delivered in an even monotone that betrayed none of his nervousness, before putting his fears to rest as she threw herself into his arms.

"Yes, you unromantic idiot," she breathed, pressing her lips to his, her words escaping around her fervent kisses, "A thousand times, yes. Nothing would make me happier than to be your wife."