Why Not?

Why Not?

An ItaSaku One-shot

Warning: If you do not understand the game of poker as seen in the World Series of Poker, this may get confusing for you.

I glanced over at him, his cool exterior causing my anger directed towards him to ricochet, hitting me back tenfold. Uchiha Itachi was probably the most infuriating man I’d ever met, although it wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy being around him. In fact, it was the exact opposite. I personally just couldn’t understand what I saw in an S-class criminal, especially one that had been the bane of my previous love’s (Sasuke’s) existence.

It couldn’t be his rock-hard chest that always seemed to contract when he kept me from falling, or his unbelievably soft and silky hair that could easily be put in a shampoo commercial. It also definitely was not the way that his fishnet shirt seemed to wrap around his muscles just enough to make him look alluring. And I could die to prove that it wasn’t—

I stopped myself mid-thought as I realized that my eyes were roaming up and down Itachi’s physique, pausing to note reasons why I definitely didn’t like him. But I realized that I just ended up naming many reasons why I was physically attracted to Itachi.

Maybe that was it; maybe I was just “warm for his form,” so to speak. But I knew deep down that that wasn’t the reason why I was attracted to him. Itachi may not be the nicest person, but he kept me from falling into a few traps in one of the Akatsuki hideouts and was always there to make sure that I was alive and well, even if Kisame wasn’t. I was sure that those were orders from higher up, but it still helped me fall for the man. Trust me to fall for another Uchiha, except one with even less emotion than the first one that I fell in love with.

“Sakura, we must stay inside the cave until Kisame is well again, I told you that.” Itachi said to me in his monotone voice. Sometimes I wonder how much it would scare me if Itachi was excited. “Come back in. I suppose we could play that card game I promised you.”

“Why not?” I asked, although I knew that Itachi would not respond to such impertinent sarcasm. I had wandered outside to sit across from the cave in which we were supposed to remain so that I could think and glare at Itachi without him annoying me about glaring at him.

But I still dutifully followed Itachi back into our temporary home, sliding into my little tree-stump chair for comfort.

Itachi brought over a deck of cards and dealt out two poker hands: one for himself, and one for me. He shot a quick look over at the sleeping, recovering Kisame, and then looked at his hand. Having already memorized my hand, I studied his face, looking for a smirk, a twitch— anything. I’d even settle for one of his steady breaths to be just a fraction longer. But of course, there was nothing different about Itachi to be observed. I steeled myself to not cry out in frustration for I had never yet been able to see Itachi do anything abnormal after being dealt his hand. I also have yet to beat him.

One has to know that the Uchiha naturally have an extraordinary poker face, even at birth. I find that to be an unfair advantage.

Itachi reveals the flop, and I stare at the cards, not really comprehending that I could win if the card on one of the next two flops is the Queen of Hearts. And I silently wonder to myself why Itachi plays along with my strange obsession with beating him at poker, even though he knows what happens if I ever win a game against him. We had a bet going, and we both knew that I could never win this bet. Because we both also knew that no one had ever beaten Uchiha Itachi in a game of poker, not that too many had even played him and lived to tell the tale.

Itachi flipped over the next card, which gained my hand a flush of hearts (as in my two cards were both in the suit of hearts, as was that card and two others from the previous flop). My heart fluttered a bit, hoping that Itachi wouldn’t have better cards, like what always happened.

Itachi discarded the card on the top of the deck, getting ready to finish the river, and that’s when I realized that the Queen of Hearts was what I needed. I knew that many outcomes rode on the back of that final card in Itachi’s perfectly poised hand. This was our tenth game, so if Itachi won, it wouldn’t be good. If Itachi won… if Itachi won, then they would take the Kyuubi from Naruto, who was currently in the Akatsuki’s possession. But if I won…

I couldn’t win though. The chance of the next card to be flipped being the Queen of Hearts was slim; it was one card of the forty-one left in the deck.

I watched, subdued, as the card flipped over to expose a red surface, decorated with hearts, and also a picture of a royalty. In my hand I had the King and Jack of Hearts, so it had to have been the Queen of Hearts. I wanted to yell and jump for joy knowing that I had one of the strongest hands in the game of poker, but I wasn’t allowed. If I showed emotion, then all chance of saving Naruto was gone and I would have a miserable life with the Akatsuki.

And so I patiently waited as Itachi flipped over his hand and smirked. I panicked at first when I saw the Queen of Spades in his hands, thinking that ha had gotten the best possible hand, but he was smirking because he had gotten four of a kind. Four queens. Two were in his hand, and two in the river (the poker river, not a real one).

Itachi got up to go send a message to those who held Naruto captive for the Akatsuki, not even bothering to see my hand.

“Itachi, please look at my cards, even if it’s only out of respect,” I said.

And so Itachi took hold of his arrogance and strode over, thinking that he was simply humoring my request. When I showed him my hand (poker hand), he paled.

“You… you won…” he murmured in disbelief. But I couldn’t blame him; I could hardly believe it myself. “Well then, what are your two requests?”

“Two?” I asked. “I thought you said that I would get any three requests.”

“I did. Us not taking the Kyuubi counts as an automatic one.”

I huffed, muttering about the unfairness of Itachi’s smart thinking, asking myself why he couldn’t be dense like the rest of us.

“Well,” I began, “I guess that my first request is for your cloak. This cave is cold, and I never received a cloak.”

Itachi gave his cloak to me without batting an eye, not bothered by the freezing temperature of the cave in the least. That was a bad choice on my part, because now Itachi had on only a fishnet shirt in front of me. I blushed and looked away, ending up with my nose against the collar of Itachi’s cloak in the process. I could distinctly detect his smell on his cloak; rainfall and cinnamon. I had no idea how someone could retain two such different scents, but Itachi managed it without meaning to; I had seen his possessions, he doesn’t own a drop of cologne.

Itachi walked over to Kisame and tended to him for about a half an hour, during which I gathered some wood from inside the cave to build a fire. It wasn’t enough; I would need to burn my stump chair unless Itachi let me go outside, which I severely doubted he would allow.

I asked him, and he, of course, said no, which forced me to light my lovely stump-chair on fire. I sniffled. That chair was like a friend to me, although I haven’t sat on many of my friends.

The fire was warm and licking at the air around it when Itachi came back over with some instant ramen. I think I know where he got it too. Poor, locked-up, ramen-deprived Naruto.

I sighed, taking the portable pan that we had and pouring water into it to boil the ramen in.

Itachi sat down right next to me, and when his elbow brushed against my skin I noticed that it was ice cold.

“Here,” I said, offering Itachi his cloak back, but he refused to take it, saying that I had requested it and it was now rightfully mine. Well, mine for the night. But I argued with him, saying that if I wanted to share, that was my decision.

And Itachi and I sat there, so close that out knees touched, and ate our ramen peacefully.

Shortly after finishing my ramen, I fell asleep, only to be woken up what seemed to be minutes later, but was probably hours later by the moon shining in my face. I quickly picked my head up off of Itachi’s shoulder, and noticed that he was awake.

“You know, you final request is good only for one more minute, it’s almost midnight,” he reminded me. My requests were only good for the day that they were earned.

So I put my brain to fast work, thinking of what I could ask Itachi to do, and with my time quickly running out, said the first thing that popped into my head.

“Kiss me,” were the words that escaped the safety of my mouth.

“Why not?” Itachi responded, and in less than a second, his lips were upon mine in passionate, mind-blowing kiss. Itachi’s hands when to my waist and the back of my head as mine went around his neck and through his hair, pulling out his black hair-tie.

When Itachi released me in exchange for the life necessity of air, I could say only one thing in response to Itachi’s previous question.

“Because Kisame might hear us, and that wouldn’t be fun, would it?”

I laughed as Itachi pulled me in for another kiss, not caring what Kisame heard. And then I knew for sure why I loved Itachi. I mean, why not?

A/N: Yeah, I know, it’s a bit weird, but it’s another one-shot because I’m bad at finishing stories. My friend wanted me to count, and I have around twenty unfinished stories, most of them not past chapter one. Enough about my problems, have a nice day and thank you for reading this.