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Chapter 29 - The Heat in the Freeze
🕑 Added 2025-05-01 16:28:29 +0000 UTCSAKURA HARUNO
Sakura gripped her glass of water so hard, her knuckles turned bloodless white. The condensation ran down her fingers like sweat. She barely noticed. Her gloves creaked in protest under her grip, a tiny sound, easily missed... but her jaw didn't miss a thing. It clenched so tight she thought her back teeth would crack.
The bastard!
She didn’t even look at him.
He was right there, across the table at Yakiniku Q, sitting like nothing had happened, legs wide, lazy grin, chopsticks in hand like he hadn’t just…. hadn’t just……..
Like she hadn’t heard it.
Seen it.
Felt it in the marrow of her bones when he said those words. That voice. Those fucking commands. She hadn’t slept. She couldn’t. Not after hearing her mother moan like that, praise him like he had ever earned it, like he was some kind of lover out of dreams instead of a Jonin creep who whispered filth with a smile.
Her grip hardened again.
She barely got that invasive voice out of her mind, and this…..
She imagined flipping the damn table. Half a second impulse—pure chakra burst, right up through her arm—but she held it. It helped that Naruto was still talking, mouthing off about some mission detail he hadn’t read. Idiot. How long had he known? How long had they all known that this guy, this smug, lazy, too-slick-for-his-own-good pervert—apparently screwed people behind chalkboards and mission report stacks?
She didn’t dare interrupt. Not when the new guy had just casually said it, like he was talking about weather patterns.
Her stomach flipped.
Was she crazy?
Was it just her?
The others sure as hell didn’t look like they were choking on bile or adrenaline. Naruto was halfway through his third plate, noodles dangling from his mouth as the idiot laughed at something the bastard said.
Sai, the new guy, Sasuke-kun’s replacement — like a nobody could ever replace her Sasuke-kun — didn’t look bothered either
But even when he spilled those crazy words, no one flinched.
No scandal. No correction. No denial.
And the bastard didn't even blink!
He just paused between bites, looked over at Sai, and grinned like he'd been handed a compliment.
Sakura’s eyes snapped down to her food, untouched. Her appetite had died from yesterday, and now it was starting to rot. For a second, all she saw in the bowl was her mother’s flushed face. Legs dangling off her bed. Smiling.
…. be obedient……
Sakura swallowed hard at the memory, she squeezed her thighs together.
Her throat burned.
God, she thought, am I actually going insane? Why does no one else care?!
She kept her eyes down, but the sound of his voice rolled over her again. He was ordering grilled beef and two extra bowls “in case his genin didn’t plan ahead,” then something about sweet sauce on Naruto’s because “he's too energetic without sugar.”
Sakura hated how close he sounded. Like he didn’t need to project his voice. Like it was just for her.
A little too low. A little too sharp at the end of each word.
She flinched when he leaned toward her to grab the soy sauce bottle near her elbow. Their arms didn’t touch, not quite, but her skin prickled anyway—like static. Like danger. She suddenly noticed how warm the booth was. How loud her heartbeat sounded inside her head.
She didn't move. Like…. like yesterday.
When had she started doing that? Just... freezing whenever like a coward.
Was that new?
When was the last time she even looked directly at him?
Her fingers clenched under the table.
No one else noticed anything.
So maybe it was her.
Maybe she'd just imagined that heat in her spine when she heard his voice again. Maybe she imagined how tight her thighs pressed together last night while her body shook like she was still hearing him say those fucking words from behind her mother—
No.
No, no, no, no, no.
Breathe.
She bit the inside of her cheek until her mouth tasted like pennies.
He's just talking, she told herself.
But that voice—God—it kept replaying.
….. Stay like that……
Sakura stilled, breathing through her nose, trying to will that voice out of her head. Burn it out. Reduce it to meaningless air. Like it hadn't curled around her spine like smoke, like hands, like heat in the wrong places.
The table buzzed with harmless conversations.
She barely heard any of it.
Naruto's voice was just static now. Sai was a non-entity. The bastard was... there, too warm, too close, and refusing to be ignored despite how desperately she clung to the edges of her rage.
It was then her mom’s words this morning came to mind.
The market’s having a sale, she’d said. So she’d figured she’d restock.
That’s what her mother had said this morning. Bright and cheerful in the kitchen, smoothing her apron down like there was absolutely no leftover shame clinging to her like perfume.
Restock.
Right.
Sakura’s stomach twisted in a way that had nothing to do with food. Suddenly, every word her mother had said echoed with new, filthy meaning.
What if she hadn’t gone to the market at all?
What if her “few things” were this bastard thing in her……
The image blinked unbidden in Sakura’s head. Her mother, on her stomach somewhere, shadowed and hot, smiling back at him.
She felt her whole body pulse once.
An ache.
She nearly slammed her chopsticks down—but didn’t. Didn’t want to bring attention to herself. Not with him still half-facing her, arm resting against the booth’s backrest like it fucking belonged there.
Was her mother blushing when she left the house?
Sakura always thought her mother’s lipstick looked tacky in the morning.…
Her head began to buzz.
She barely registered when someone asked her if she was gonna eat.
She didn’t answer.
No. Fuck that. Fuck him. Fuck her.
Sakura imagined her laughing softly in the bath afterwards, wiping his scent from her and humming to herself like it was just another day. Just another Tuesday.
Her chest tightened—anger, maybe. Or shame.
Or something lower, harder to name.
A heat that shouldn't be there.
But it was.
And it pissed her off.
It was him. The bastard's fault.
It had to be him.
Maybe her mother was stupid, weak, even a little slutty—but still. Sakura couldn’t picture her just lying back and spreading for any Jonin captain who walked through the door. Right?
Right?
Sakura bit her inner cheek harder. Twisted the napkin tighter, like maybe she could wring the thought out of her head.
And her mother just… acted like nothing happened.
What the hell kind of woman just lets herself be used like that?!
A slut.
The word felt heavy in her mouth, even if she didn’t say it aloud. She never used that word.
But it landed there anyway.
It burrowed into her tongue.
Sakura’s throat squeezed, shame crawling under her skin almost immediately. She didn’t want to think of her mom like that. Or picture it again.
"Stop it," she muttered under her breath. No one heard her. Or cared.
The bastard reached beside her again—this time to grab pickled ginger—and didn’t even look at her. But the slope of his neck, the way his knuckles brushed the tabletop, the exact timing of his breath as he pulled back… it all landed too close.
It made her stomach pinch.
Was he doing that on purpose?
—Wait. That—
No. That would explain it.
Because…
Because maybe it wasn’t her mother after all.
Maybe she didn’t offer herself like that. Maybe she didn’t want to get f-fucked like that.
Maybe it wasn’t even her choice.
That would... make sense.
Wouldn’t it?
What if he did something?
Something silent. Something subtle.
Maybe he drugged her. Not with pills. But...
It was no genjutsu. A small part of her hoped it was. But she tried to break herself off of it last night, just like they taught her at the Academy, and nothing happened.
Sakura’s stomach turned again, but slowly this time. Like gears shifting.
Maybe he did something to her chakra network, left her dazed, receptive, smiling, and obedient from the inside out.
Or maybe it wasn’t jutsu. Maybe it was just him.
That raw hum in the back of his throat when he laughed low, not even at her, never to her really, but it still peeled layers off her composure. With her mother...
Maybe it was the same.
Maybe worse.
Maybe he got close. Leaned in the same way he just did at the table, casual and confident. Body warm. Voice quiet.
Maybe he said something real soft in the kitchen, quiet and steady like with animals, like Stay still like that.
Sakura blinked hard.
Her pulse thumped behind her ears.
She hated that she could imagine it so easily.
She shouldn’t know what that would sound like.
She shouldn’t know how it would feel.
She—
He smirked, chewing now, amused—for no reason, it seemed—but her chest fluttered, in anger or frustration, as she caught it from the corner of her eye.
The tension in her spine coiled tighter.
No. He was doing something.
He had to be.
Because otherwise…
Otherwise, that meant her mother wanted it.
And that?
That was worse.
She should’ve opted out of this mission.
No—seriously. What the hell was wrong with her, accepting the assignment the moment the Hokage proposed it, not even asking who the replacement for Kakashi-sensei was until it was too late.
She was stupid.
Stupid and loyal and too desperate to prove she was a mature kunoichi who could “handle herself.”
She couldn’t handle this.
Not when he was hovering less than a foot away, dragging his chopsticks slowly through his sauce like he had all the time in the world. Not when he breathed like that. Like nothing haunted him. Like he hadn’t—
He chewed the inside of her cheek, her mind racing faster than her hands could clench. Maybe… maybe if she told Hokage-sama everything—that he’d used improper methods, chakra manipulation, mental coercion on a civilian—
Even if she couldn’t prove anything…
Maybe it would still be enough to pull Kakashi-sensei from his sabbatical.
Replace him. Remove him.
But then…
Her mother.
It would mean dragging her name through the muck.
The village would know. Not all of them, but enough.
No.
That would break her. They’d both be stained.
Even if he went to jail.
No, especially if he did.
So she said nothing. Kept chewing as the others discussed strategic planning for the Land of Waves.
Technically, she was part of this briefing. In theory.
But she didn’t hear a word of it.
Her fingers began tracing unconscious patterns into the wood of the table.
What if she joined the Military Police Force?
She’d thought about it. More than once, often under a blanket with her hand between her thighs. Sasuke-kun made it look noble, even when he was angry, he still exuded this proud clarity when…..
Maybe that’s what she needed. Something official. Something to help her sleep at night without these thoughts—
She could wear black. Patrol the walls of the village. Match her dear Sasuke-kun, stride for stride. Maybe they’d start going on assignments together. Completing reports. Investigating shady men.
Just like this one.
She pictured herself slapping handcuffs around the bastard’s smug wrists, dragging him by the collar across the Konoha rooftops in full uniform. Her hair tied back tightly. Voice strong. Order in her eyes.
“The charges?” she would ask coolly.
“Sexual manipulation. Betraying the honor of a married woman. Infiltration through seduction.”
Sasuke-kun would stand beside her. Watch her tame the wolf.
She’d throw him into the holding cells. Let him rot. Maybe visit him sometimes through the bars. Remind him of what happens when you touch things you were never meant to touch.
But…
Then she took a sharp breath.
Why was he smirking again?
The bastard rolled his shoulders, but his elbow brushed back just enough for his scent to strike her again.
Just… body heat. Something low and male and wrong. That scent again. Faint, humid, buried in her drawer and in her memory, stirring something low in her belly she didn’t want to name. It made her thighs tense again before she even realized it.
And suddenly—
She pictured him in the cell.
Not on the ground, broken—but standing. Calm and waiting.
Shadows casting down on his chest, dripping over his collarbone. He’d tilt his head slowly when she came close to the bars.
“Are you here to interrogate me?”
He’d ask it with no fear.
With interest.
Sakura’s thighs unconsciously pressed together.
God.
She shouldn’t be thinking that.
She snapped her eyes down at the plate. Food gone cold. Couldn’t even remember eating.
Bastard!
He was in her head. Again!
And that was the final straw.
No more pretending it wasn’t personal.
If Konoha wouldn’t remove him—
Then she would do something.
She pushed the plate forward slightly. Stood slowly.
Searched for the weight of her courage under the silk-thin layer of composure.
Her voice would be calm when she spoke to him.
But her eyes would not flinch.
She was going to confront him.
Face-to-face.
— — — — — — —
A/N: Thanks for reading!
Bit late today, sorry. How you doin’.
I originally planned for Sakura’s confrontation with Eishin to be a single scene from her POV… but then I accidentally deep-dived into her head a bit too much and, well, it kind of ran away from me. What was meant to be one chapter turned into… more. Because, of course, I don’t know how to stop.
Let me know what you think. Comments mean a lot, and I’m curious to hear your take on, uh, anything and everything.
