Chains

                                                  C          H          A         I         N         S

Even in my classes I never understood the concept of synergy. I know the term. I understand its context and yet it is the only word that’s floating around in my mind which has been reduced to piles of ash after the one I know to be called Sasuke set fire to any rational emotions that pre-existed seconds ago. Within a matter of months he’s managed to pull out every range of reaction I didn’t even realize I was capable of. I was contented being like everyone else with three main ranges that blinked on and off like the traffic lights throughout the day. Happy, sad, angry. But my temperaments expanded beyond those simple horizons.

I wasn’t as talented at keeping them from others as my captors, however as I look into the smoldering embers still threatening to consume any more of my paper thoughts. However, I can see a small crack in his placid features. I wrinkle my nose in disgust drawing away as much as I can manage against his ironclad hold blatantly looking to the floor diverting my gaze from his. How natural it must be for him to weave all manners of spells and cast them on his helpless victims. I bet they’re easily misled, swooning right into his arms hoping to cozy up to this playboy for a chance of leniency and escape. His brows crease in slight confusion and I feel the gravity of his fingers loosen ever so slightly from my waist yet he still keeps me drawn into his orbit.

“How many other women have you used that line on?” He downcasts his timid stare as though he’s contemplating on which words to choose carefully before feeding them to me.

“None.” He grounds out. I choose to stand visualizing him feeding me a spoon of heaping garbage and daring to call it gourmet. And that’s all this has ever been about. I’ve been allowing my judgment to cloud over in the hopes of making things gradually get a little easier each day here. There’s a sharp pain in my heart, this is textbook Sakura. Stockholm Syndrome, you’ve had to cooperate with the police before with cases that have these exact same shapes and symptoms. Granted I’ve only had about three of them, but they all have the same framework. I refuse to let the same stupefied silly spell settle over me.

“Ha!” I slow my hammering heart, wait for my breath to even out, and then I dare to disclose my full attention back to him turning on the ball of my feet. We regard one another for a brief moment and I see his walls clearly build back up as his face falls and draws back into its usual placid place. The fracture disappearing. “Did you try seducing my friend the same way?”

His usual coal gray eyes flash into dangerous dark tided eddies of deep black ink. I’ve pushed a boundary that I have no regrets in doing. So as he rises in one graceful motion from the end of my bed I take a few steps back out of the halo of small light available in the room and he soon joins me in the darkness. He becomes a black mass towering over me as I retreat to maintain my distance from him. The wing of my shoulder blade beats against the hard plaster of the wall. I still, holding my hands over one another as they rest on the small rise of my chest and I yelp when the thick trunk of his arm flys past the side of my head and his palm connects firmly against the wall beside me. My eyes widen for a brief second I thought this was the moment he was going to finally lose his composure and slap me.

I flinch and when I recoil from myself enough to peek an eye open I dare to search out the whites of his eyes. Even a trace of the diamonds that linger at the corners of his eyes, but find there is nothing. Just the empty doll like eyes of a shark about to go in for the kill.

“Awfully presumptuous of you to assume I’m promiscuous Sakura. Especially when you yourself are a prude.” My cheeks heat, the Gods pour fire into my mold and I feel it engulfing my entire being. How dare he!

“Don’t presume to know me or what I am!” The bitterness in his low baritone sends a shutter through my body like cold water over flame. I gaze into the abyss of his eyes as he stares right back down the barrel of his aristocratic nose and my vision settles on the thinly drawn line of his tiers as he adds acidity to his venomous words injecting his threateningly poisonous words through my soul.

“Take your own advice, Sakura.” The way that foul forked tongue of his sinfully strokes against the syllabus of my name leaves me in an embarrassed state, one to which I can barely think of a way to jab at his response. I was responsible for this reaction, but so what?! He’s been more than happily drawing all of mine out so why shouldn’t I rebel with this little defiant dance we seem to come to know and fall into every time we converse with one another? This man really knows how to piss me off. I jut my chin up in response. How dare he literally look his nose down at me right now when his occupation gives him no credibility to talk or preach.

“I tend to make my own assumptions, given the circumstances.”

“You think I’m just some brainless brute?”

“If the shoe fits.” I airily add my two cents listening to his fingers curl behind my head against the wall. I take a small measured gulp and feel rather than see him hold my chin in place as his lips draw near yet again. Lyrics to a song pop into my head at the most inappropriate time but it fits with the situation. With your lips I sense a danger, you’ve got the eyes of a stranger.

I can feel him drag out the distance between us and can see the shadows of his lips upturn into a cruel arrogant smirk. It’s almost off putting but I continue to hold my ground and stand by my words.

“What a haughty princess you are.”

“I never claimed to wear a crown.” I icily spit back at him dawning my own impression of the infamous Sasuke scowl.

“Not that its any of your business but I too hold a diploma, your highness.” Now that really did send me through a loop. Surely this low life criminal must be joking.

“Oh? Clown school?”

“Harvard.” He flatly replies. My jaw drops open. I’m reminded he still has hold of it which he condescendingly flips up so my lips smack together. I smack his hand away. He could be bluffing. There’s no way he did his time in college and earned a degree. What would he even study? How to become a cat burglar?

“It’s true princess, got it framed and everything.”

“I’m sure.” I’m not going to showcase my surprise to him, but my mind is reeling right now. I cant believe a criminal went to somewhere that pristine. Then again, its not like he would crank out an essay on vowing to take advantage all he’ll learn in his courses for gainful black market employment. How he’ll twist all his achievements and use them against a society he really should be working for.

I’ve spent too much time in my mind, its been surprisingly quiet as I chew over my thoughts. I narrow my eyes waiting for this game of chicken to end. He withdraws his hand and I am free from being pinned by my wings against the wall and he surprises me by going to the door. He looks back over his shoulder muttering just enough I can catch it.

“I don’t have to prove myself to a princess.” He shuts the door jarring the frame a little and I scowl in its wake.

—————————————————————————————————————

Hinata and I sit outside in the backyard stuck with a bodyguard as we make light conversation under the shade of the umbrella on a patio. It’s thankfully the older brothers turn to watch us and we casually reminisce and even dare to make plans for the future should we ever get out of here, alive.

Itachi is reading, he’s always reading, or sipping tea it seems. I wonder what university he graduated from considering the books he’s always nosing are often hard editions for a senior in college to even get through. Today it’s the art of war in a Latin edition. I suppose he likes torturing the muscles in his brain to expand them and keep them sharp.

Hinata seems to enjoy being in her stasis state oblivious to the details of the brothers. She grounds herself in the present and enjoys watching the grass grow or the leaves rustle from the wind. She fits here. In the country I mean. She looks like a prestige’s queen overlooking her garden. Her ivory skin may be complimented by the moon in the harshness of the city at night, but in the daylight she glows like a flower herself yearning for the approval of the sun.

I smile as she turns her attention back onto me and her mouth moves but no sound comes out. I blink.

“Sorry, say again?”

“I asked how you were fairing?” I shake my head disturbed by the illusion of our situation.

“As well as a prisoner can I suppose.” I fold my hands over my knees like a paper swans wings staring at the bland features of my outfit. Normally on a day like today I’d choose a setting that involved the strong scent of coffee. The bustling busy bodies of people eagerly awaiting to get their hands on their order. I’d more than likely be too busy to notice the background noise as I jot down notes to archive the days events.

“You’re still—-doing ok though, right?” Her soft voice pillows around my thoughts. I glance up at her and give her a light smile. That’s the last thing I need—-for HInata to worry about me and my mental state. I offer up my best not-to-worry smile showing off my teeth and fan my hand at her back and forth.

“I am. The only thing I’m worried about it getting you back home safe and sound.” Her brows furrow and her face falls. I look at her confused. What’s that look for?

“Sakura—-please tell me you aren’t trying to make a deal behind closed doors.” She says it softly, but I can feel Itachi’s attention jerk from the pages of his book and suddenly the tension around me vacuums all the air from my lungs.

“O-of course not!”

Hinata glances over her shoulder to Itachi, she leans in a bit closer.

“It’s just that, I’ve noticed you have sort of been changing when the other one is around.”

Changing? I know sometimes it takes an outsider looking in to tell you if you’ve been acting different, but...that’s just ridiculous!

“How so?” I inquire truly intrigued.

“You seem more, how should I put this. Like your old self. In a good way! Like before you got caught up in your career and just sort of drove on autopilot.”

“I didn’t drive on autopilot...”

“You sort of did. You became withdrawn wh-which I totally understand! You have always been a busy body and that’s just who you are which is fine but- I miss having our  leisure hangout times. It’s been so hard to call and know when you’ll have a day off. I commend you, I really do, you want to save every life you can throughout the day but then it becomes this fixation for you and you lose track of time and I just...”

I put my hand atop of hers.

“I understand, I have fallen into bad habits I know. Tell you what, if we get out of this I’ll make the effort to be there more.”

————————————————————————————

Changing. The word rolls around in my head like a marble hitting all the edges of my wooden head in annoying plinking sounds. The world drowns out once more and I’m sucked back into that black meditative void that’s happened before. I gaze up at the ceiling, it started with counting the bumps and finding patterns, but then my mind melts into a warm stasis. Usually that’s how it does happen, but the word turns into an object and I find myself being annoyed by my thoughts rather than taking comfort in them.

I’m with myself twenty four seven so I don’t notice when I grow or relapse into the old me. What did she mean? I cant stand Sasuke. I hate everything about him. His airs, his smug expressions, his haughty demeanor. He acts like he’s the king of everything while everyone around him is just a piece on his board to move and manipulate.

He makes my skin crawl! And speaking of satan, here he comes to deliver my meal that I refused to come down and eat just to avoid that bastard and he cant be bothered with showing a little bit of emotion. He wanders over to the nightstand setting the tray down. There’s terrible silence and he’s going to leave. I want him to leave. I do. Yet when I grab hold of his hand he glances at me and like that unspoken dance we seem to just know —- he crushes his body against mine, lips crashing on the shores of my own, our teeth painfully knock and I can feel my lip swell from the onslaught and yet I return his fervor with equal hunger.

Our bodies collide, I press flush against him, he easily holds me up, I get lost in the soft fanning of his hair, and he mine, we paint a canvas of black and light pink against one another. Dark and light mingling in a beautiful new color that just works. His fingertips bruise my skin against the small of my back. I wrap my arms around his thick neck taking in his alluring scent of sweat, musk, and pine. I drink him in. And somewhere in the fray my eyes became misty and I’m crying, but its the last of my resistance weeping from the hot coals of my tears reminding me that I’ve bottled too much up and this is my repercussion.

I can feel the sturdy strength in his boxy steeled frame and I feel secure and safe in his arms. I don’t completely fit into him, yet I demand a vast majority of his abdomen and his waist that I don’t need to force myself to fit against him. He just makes it happen by holding me off my feet and allowing me to be a part of him. And as I spiral into my chaos and madness I feel like I’m falling, and I am, but then the soft plush of my bed catches me and shapes to my form and he’s straddling me.

I breath him in and for a moment we part for air, and that’s when I fall even further.