31_days | Nov 5 (Naruto) A red coat

Title: A red coat
Prompt: Nov. 5, 2008 ~ but not without considerable regret
Fandom: Naruto
Character/Pairing: Sasuke/Sakura
Warning: AU, I suppose this is slightly cliche. The more I tried to un-cliche it, the more cliche it turned.
Summary: Sometimes the right thing isn't the easiest or the best idea.
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"Ino, you remember her? She's the blonde girl who works with me, well, she started to flirt with him. God, you should have heard her," the pink girl beside him told him, chuckling as she remembered the scene. They were walking side by side down the street, shoulders barely touching and fingertips brushing. The air had a crisp feeling to it.

(The feeling of an ending, a beginning, of something.)

Sasuke wasn't paying attention to the girl with him. He nodded occasionally, watching her move, drinking in her appearance. Her short steps, her swinging arms, her laughing face. Before she could notice, he looked straight ahead and lead her down a street to a coffee-shop, the one she wanted to go to, and opened the door.

"And, she found out after, she was flirting with our new boss." Sakura giggled, turning her smiling face to him as they sat down in a corner. The store was warm, almost too warm, and she shrugged out of her coat.

Sasuke didn't reply, staring at her for a moment before breaking away and looking out a window.

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, concerned. True, he was usually quiet, but not to this degree.

"There is something I need to tell you," Sasuke murmured, his voice low. It was so low she could barely hear it--and maybe that was on purpose, so that no one could hear it and it couldn't be true.

Sasuke continued, watching her. Sakura's face looked puzzled for a moment, as though she didn't understand what he was saying, before realization dawned. Then her face fell, her eyes a shattered mirror reflecting the jagged edges inside. There was slight anger for a moment before crushing defeat edged in and she leapt off her chair, swirling out the door, a whirlwind of tears.

Her red coat was left behind, her scent clinging to it, and that was what Sasuke took with him as he left.

-x-

"Here's your son," a nurse told Sasuke, handing him his first child.

"He's...beautiful," the mother sighed, tired, as Sasuke stood beside her holding his son. "His hair, just like yours..."

Sasuke remembered another voice talking to him long ago, whispers of days long past.

("Black-haired girls...green eyes...Ohhh! I want a pink-haired son."

"Pink-haired?"

"Yes, like me!"

"No."

"Don't worry, he can have your eyes.)

"Yes, just like me."

Here was his son, the one that would continue the family and show his father that even though Sasuke was second-born, he was still as good as his brother.

Even better.

His wife, from a wealthy and important family, would help him do that.

Gently, he placed his son in his wife's arms. The baby's eyes opened and Sasuke ignored the sinking feeling when he saw the purple eyes. Getting out his cellphone, he exited the room to make a quick call, informing his father of a successor.

"Yes, there is an heir." Sasuke's voice was clipped as he listened to his father's response. He stared at a green-tinted glass, watched the shades of colour play on the white walls.

"Of course." Sasuke took out a file from a folder he had in his small bag, a file on different aspects of law, and finds an empty chair to sit on. Placing the file on the table beside him, he got out a pen and started to work."I'm doing it now."

A flash of pink blinked in the corner of his eyes and he turned, just in time to follow a woolen scarf from a girl make its journey to the floor. The girl, no older than six, ran back and grabbed it, her smile filling her face as she picked it up.

(He saw her smile, full of trust.)

"Bye, father." He snapped the phone off, disconnecting the call, and put it back in his pocket. He opened the bag again, getting out another folder as he waited in the hospital.

In the back of the bag, hidden underneath folders and papers, lay a red coat.
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I think I'll have to work on this again later, expand on it...

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