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moor
Prompt: Fake Dating
Rating: T, maybe M later
Squicks: Misunderstandings, loss of family, misunderstood intimacy
A/N: The prompt comes into play! :)
Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six
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Squicks: Misunderstandings, loss of family, misunderstood intimacy
A/N: The prompt comes into play! :)
Part One || Part Two || Part Three || Part Four || Part Five || Part Six
#
For his part, Tobirama kept to himself socially. He produced each album for “Send You”, he mixed up to fifty tracks at a time by hand (when Hashirama pouted about wanting ‘more layers’), he remained aloof in public and silent in private. He had zero interest in following his brother’s and Madara’s salacious, rumour-mongering route to popularity and notoriety. The paps had mostly left him to his own devices, which he appreciated. With the constant travel, studio time, rehearsing and recording, it wasn’t like he had much free time, anyway. He was grateful his responsibilities ended at their music.
#
Tobirama’s silent, ‘brooding’ demeanour did not leave him devoid of fans, however.
“Tobi-spotting” became a favourite passtime of a sector of Send You’s fans, and when he did go out—to meet a collaborator, to grab a coffee on his way home after a recording session, to buy a hat to protect his sensitive eyes from the sun—he landed in the spotlight on social media. When he thought he’d found a small, out of the way gym to work out at that he mistakenly assumed was safe, it became a mad house when his picture was revealed online.
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Tobirama adapted to this constant invasion of privacy by not reacting. He had never been very expressive, but he learned to lock down anything that would give away his personal tastes or needs.
Instead of living in an elaborate, swanky mansion, or having parties, he had purchased an old warehouse in a more rundown area of Konoha and renovated it to suit his needs. He left the ground floor mostly as it was, but the interior he updated with soundproof tile, two recording rooms, a home gym, and, his pride and joy, a climate controlled instrument repository.
It was home.
#
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Sakura, on the other hand, became a slave to her position.
Elaborate, wild parties in one of her downtown condos, retreats at a villa in southern France, extravagant shopping with a trail of paparazzi in tow as she made a production of running through the latest fashions, all served to build her reputation as a media darling. And rather than dissuade the circus of hangers on, Tsunade taught Sakura how to harness their attention.
… so while Sakura would be trawling high-end boutiques, she would be accompanied by friends who championed social and political reform circles, loudly debating civil rights.
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“Should I wear the silver or the gold to the equal rights rally?” asked Sakura, holding up two different dresses for Ino, her best friend and stylist, to assess.
“The neuro-divergent, ASD, BIPOC, or LGBTQ+ equal rights rally?” inquired Ino, checking Sakura’s schedule.
“BIPOC.”
“Gold. Their theme is allied with the Olympics in recognizing the level of effort different government organizations put into protecting BIPOC. You want to encourage them to adopt a gold standard.”
“Perfect, I liked the gold one better anyway.”
“Grab that white one with the baby blue fade in the skirt for the ASD.”
“Done.”
#
#
“Do I have any parties next week?” asked Sakura, sipping her branded sparkling water as she and Ino stretched their legs near a fountain outside the high-end shopping district. They were both aware of the not-so-subtle camera phones and digital cameras pointed their way, and pretending not to pay attention to them. Routine.
“Your own or anyone else’s?”
Smiling, Sakura groaned through her teeth. Ino sent her a wicked-looking (but genuinely sympathetic) smile.
“Need a break?”
“… it’s a family thing… I need to be with my brothers.”
Ino nodded.
“Already arranged.”
Sakura’s shoulders relaxed. “Thank you.”
#
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Sakura glared at Tsunade and Kakashi in Tsunade’s office, her hands fisted tightly at her sides.
“Never.”
“I know you don’t want to use it for this—”
“Then we aren’t doing it,” stated Sakura.
“—But it’s a good opportunity for a ‘flare up’ between Hashirama and Madara over your behalf,” continued Kakashi ruthlessly.
“No.”
Tsunade looked between the pair. Kakashi had the best strategic head on his shoulders in the business, but she sympathized with Sakura’s vehemence in this particular case.
“Kakashi, maybe we should shelve this one for now.”
“It was Hashirama’s agent who made the request this time.”
#
#
The distant, rolling thunder leant a miserable soundtrack to the heavy clouds and occasional rain misting the cemetery that Friday afternoon.
Walking between Izuna and Madara, Sakura held her head high as they approached her parents’ plot, lovingly maintained by the family staff. Itachi and Sasuke were already there in their formal suits, and Sakura tried to ignore how obviously her hair stood out in their group.
Her jaw tightened when Hashirama and Tobirama approached, flowers in hand, to face her and Madara. Cameras followed them.
Her inhale shook.
“My parents’ death is not a publicity stunt,” whispered Sakura icily.
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Not for the first time in his life, Tobirama cursed the media.
He had raged at Hashirama that this farce was in the poorest taste, but Hashirama had pushed on, promising that he would work it out with Madara.
Well, Madara was one thing.
The look of pain and fury on Sakura’s face that mournful afternoon would be burned into Tobirama’s memory until the day he died.
How could you?
How dare you?
Have you no sense of decency left?
The unspoken accusations ricocheted through his heart, leaving him heavy, empty and ashamed.
“Please accept our sincerest condolences,” he murmured.
#
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“I didn’t know this is what they planned,” said Hashirama as he and Madara paid their respects shoulder to shoulder in the rain.
They had to make the moment last so the news crews and paps could get all their required shots in.
“You’ve stood here with me before,” answered Madara tiredly. “Thank you for being here again.”
Hashirama glanced at the only woman in their group, on Madara’s other side.
“Sakura,” he began sincerely. “I’m so—”
“Not now,” snapped Tobirama, his glare cutting off Hashirama’s comfort. “We’re disgracing this family enough.”
Everyone’s attention turned to Tobirama.
—Including the paparazzi’s.
#
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Further proof that Tobirama Senju disapproves of his brother’s relationship with Sakura was recently captured at an intimate Uchiha family gathering.
Friday afternoon, the Uchiha clan gathered to pay their respects to the thirteenth anniversary of the passing of Sakura, Itachi and Sasuke Uchihas’ parents. Sources close to the families confirmed that Tobirama called his brother’s relationship with the talented young starlet “disgraceful”. The photos from the event corroborate this, with a rare picture of Sakura herself glaring at Tobirama for his interference.
In a comforting twist, however the pictures and videos released convey that Hashirama and Madara have reconciled.
#
At Madara’s, and thus the family’s, clanstead home, the Uchiha and Senju gathered to share a drink. Itachi narrowed his eyes at Madara as he poured Sasuke a tumbler of whiskey, but Izuna chided Itachi.
“We all need it,” said Izuna, sagging in his corner of an over sized leather couches.
Hashirama looked around, noting the absence of a cherished, familiar face.
“She’s in her room,” said Madara quietly.
“She was very angry,” agreed Itachi, looking toward the door, then back at his brother. His shoulders stiffened, but he stayed by his brother’s side.
She deserved to be, thought Tobirama.
#
Sakura had ‘moved out’ of Madara’s home when she was sixteen, but the semi-public residences she inhabited held none of her precious personal belongings. She had left those safely protected at Madara’s. Madara had protected her from so much, growing up, and she truly felt grateful for his oversight and guidance.
She just wished she’d been as strong as he was, at his age, to control her own current life.
Her emotions warring inside her, she pushed away from her window, snuck into Madara’s room, and went to his desk.
There, she found what she needed and escaped downstairs.
#
The faint airs stirred his sensitive ears and Tobirama’s attention ebbed from the conversation Hashirama and the Uchiha shared in the private family room in Madara’s home.
Wordlessly slipping from the room, he followed the slips of piano until he arrived outside a dim conservatory down a half-forgotten hall. Half-forgotten, because somehow, he knew this was where he would find her again.
Her voice pained, her playing a mess of raw and pristine, Sakura sat turned away from him at the piano. To her left side, he saw the blanket she used to sleep under, there, piled neatly.
#
It was wrong.
It was wrong and broke so many of their desperately protected levels of privacy that Tobirama knew he would never be able to atone for his intrusion on her intimate, guttural pain.
But his phone was out before he knew it, recording her, the conservatory door opened half an an inch wider so he could capture her playing and her voice and her emotion and her heart and her well-deserved, bone-deep despair.
Sakura may be seventeen, nearly eighteen, to the public.
But in private, Tobirama recognized she was in actuality an achingly, breathtakingly old soul.
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TBC
