บท 41: Chapter 40
On her way, she contemplated a number of things. Sasuke's request that he made at noon was the first thing that drifted to her mind, knowing that it was a tremendous blow to his dignity to even ask her to do what he wanted her to do. It was almost cowardly, and that's what made it even more of a harder request to ask Sakura.
Her thoughts also touched briefly on Ino's intrusion into the hospital that afternoon. She knew how to deal with it, but she knew it was most likely going to be ugly, and she was not looking forward to that. She wasn't surprised that Ino hadn't been admitted into the hospital, even though—after a year of training under Tsunade, followed by an apprenticeship to Shikamaru's father—she had become a quite talented and notable pharmacist. However, her background did not give her the right to pry into events that were going on in the hospital—they were completely different branches, and other than the exchange of medications, the hospital and pharmacy did not concern each other with the other's business. Sakura sighed, Inner Sakura making a list of comebacks that she could throw at her ex-best friend.
Well, Ino, she supposed—in a weird way—was still her best friend, despite them getting on one another's nerves and constantly being at each other's throats. It was a strange friendship in which each knew that they could count on the other to be there for them even though they always were arguing. After Sasuke had left Konoha, she had been very thankful for Ino's support—even though it seemed downright cruel to anyone who didn't know the situation. Nothing felt better than verbally insulting your best friend in order to get over a crisis. They never meant it cruelly, and even though it appeared that way, there was always a kinder, underlying hint that got the message across. That was how their friendship worked.
Arriving in front of the neighborhood where the Uchihas had lived, Sakura laid her hand on her closed bag, thinking of the contents inside. Again she wondered the significance of the kunai—she hadn't been able to bring herself to ask him while they ate dinner. She walked nonchalantly down the street, knowing that she would not get any answers now, if ever. And after a few minutes, she arrived in front of the old manor, the old building seeming to stand completely apart from the rest of the neighborhood. There were less people about than usual and she jumped the fence nimbly without being seen. Pushing through the brambles, she came around back, crawling up onto the porch.
Sliding the door open she entered the empty house, the darkness seeming to cloak her in a menacing way. The lights didn't work because it had been years since Sasuke had paid his electricity bill for the house. She was lucky that the water was still running when she cleaned the house, because it would have made it ten times more difficult if there had been no water. Walking down the semi-familiar halls, she opened her bag and took out the first few items, putting them back in place. The kunai she rested gently on the stand it had been placed on in a weapons cabinet that had been filled with many blades of formidable size and sharpness.
She was replacing the last item, the feather duster, into a hall closet when something caught her eye. Lying on the shelf directly in front of her was a shallow box marked 'music' on the side. Curious, she took the box down from the shelf and sat down on the floor, removing the lid carefully. Inside there were a number of yellowed sheets of paper—sheet music—and a music book lay at the bottom. The notes were all hand written, and maybe had been composed by Sasuke's mother. Intrigued, she lifted the first sheet out of the box, holding it in the fading light cast through a window nearby and read the title.
Experimental Tune #9
A strange title, she thought to herself, perhaps this was a song that the composer had thought of and had wished to edit it later. Having taken some music classes when she was training as a kunoichi, she hummed the different notes to herself. It was a very pretty melody, light and uplifting, but it did need a little work. She set the sheet neatly aside and rifled through the other papers.
Most of the papers were sheet music, all hand written and composed by someone in the household, and as Sakura discovered in a bit from one of the first sheets of music, they were indeed composed by Sasuke's mother. Sometimes she would hum the tune of different pieces, if they were not too difficult, or if an interesting title caught her eye—as was one such case when she came across two of the oldest sheets in the box.
The older of the two did not interest her much, but it was the other that caused her interest to pique. The paper was old and somewhat yellowed, the words written at the top were almost gone, but the black ink that marked the page stood out clearly.
Sasuke
That was all that was written on at the very top of the page, and underneath in brackets, scribbled in faded pencil was the word 'lullaby'. Sakura glanced at the older piece, and Itachi's name was written on it, but ignoring it she set it aside and looked at the piece that Sasuke's mother had written for her youngest son. She experimentally hummed the first few bars of the melody, noting how it was in a minor key, the melody beautiful and soft, yet melancholy in a way that lulled Sakura into a peaceful state of being, but left her tinted with a trace of sorrow.
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