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Sai is, quite famously, bad at reading people. And interacting with them. And understanding how they feel. Many of the occasions on which he’s attempted a grasp at normalcy have ended in yelling, broken bones, and an exhausted intervention detailing what exactly went wrong this time.
He’s been improving, at least. The miasma of emotional teenagerdom he was assigned to infiltrate years ago has transformed into a comfortable camaraderie beyond the bounds of Team Kakashi. He sees the sun most days, eats meals a dozen times more flavorful than ration bars, shops and exchanges “pleasantries” with merchants, and will often find a member of the Konoha Twelve waving or nodding or, in certain cases, yelling across the street at him.
While Sai trained for missions in which he would become a recognizable figure in public spaces, the reality of it still makes him want to twitch. He’s much better than that, of course, but being noticed by unmasked faces is a direct contradiction to his first decade and a half of life. The fear of a blown cover is “anxiety-inducing”, particularly for those in covert operations, according to Yamanaka-san, one of the few who does the across-the-street yelling and follows up on it.
Perhaps the familiarity of their squad work during the war and their status as colleagues within the Intelligence department make her comfortable and willing to engage in “small talk” with him. She’ll drag him from the paper supply shop to a nearby dango stand and ask him more questions than he has pre-formulated answers for. It’s always intriguing, how Yamanaka-san can garner so much from his flat, unimportant responses.
Half of the notes scrawled within his social guidebook are in her looping hand, somehow. Since the war ended and more unsocialized agents began popping out of the cracks, he’s had the thought to create an improved, illustrated version of the book. With Yamanaka-san’s help, he may be able to mitigate some yelling and bone breaking events before they occur.
Sai is glad, however, that the violence is not strictly a response to his social failings but a general reaction to just about anything within the confines of Team Kakashi. And he thinks, perhaps, the limited times they have for group training make them even more volatile, squeezing a week’s worth of tempestuous bickering into a single afternoon of beating the snot out of each other.
He gladly participates in the sanctioned beatings, inking snakes to disrupt the Uchiha’s footwork so Sakura can sweep his knees and punt him across the clearing into a menagerie of Naruto’s shadow clones. Kakashi-senpai just claps on the sidelines while Yamato-taicho tries to string him up on a Mokuton tree. Sparring with Team Kakashi has become a normalcy within his life, and he believes he feels nostalgia when thinking back to their first few sessions.
Trying to understand the wreck that was the remainder of Team Seven was, thankfully, not his job. His job involved infiltration and covert operations, synthesis of that information remaining the role of Danzo. Surviving the jinchuuriki-Godaime’s apprentice-Hatake dynamic was of a high difficulty in the first place, taken up a notch with the presence of a former agent. But time and a few murders later, he found himself somewhat integrated into their flow. His watch shifts became regular and his position in team formations began to feel natural; he liked bouncing fuuinjutsu ideas off of Sakura and improving Naruto’s own calligraphy for the art, sketching Kakashi-senpai’s pack, and sitting in quietude with Yamato-taicho.
So Sai was understandably unsettled when the Uchiha came into the picture, slouching his way onto the training field like he hadn’t been willing to commit mass slaughter a few months ago. Not that Sai was innately bothered by that fact, seeing as Naruto’s talk-no-jutsu failure rate was low, the Godaime took his trial and sentencing seriously, and none of them were clean of blood. He was more thrown by the way the Uchiha’s presence acted as a liquid accelerant to Naruto and Sakura’s already volatile personalities.
Sure, he’d observed their interactions when standing as opponents. As Danzo had predicted, Naruto edged towards ballistic and Sakura made plenty of faces he couldn’t even imagine understanding. Crucially, he believed the powder keg they resembled was a result of being teammates-turned-adversaries. Unfortunately for both Sai and Yamato-taicho, they had to witness the dissolution of that dream with their own eyes.
The comfortable bantering and bickering turns to shouts of rage and black eyes and burning trees at the drop of a hat, and Sai can only offer Yamato-taicho the “physical comfort” of a pat on the shoulder as he whimpers in the face of teenage destruction. Kakashi-senpai likes to prove his use with various water jutsu when the threat of a forest fire is present, but otherwise takes their actions as nothing more serious than a few puppies having a play fight.
There are days when the Uchiha’s “community service” (becoming one of Tsunade-sama’s beloathed busywork gophers) conflicts with team training, and Sai is able to retain some sense of understanding over his members of Team Seven. The temporary return to baseline is always an enjoyment, falling back into their patterns with ease.
Then the Uchiha comes back and an awkward (he thinks) air overtakes him and Naruto and Sakura until someone’s knuckles come out. It must be a uniquity to them and their history, as no other three-man squad he’s observed acts in any manner similar.
Sai, to be cautious, asks Kakashi-senpai, “Is this typical behavior for them?” while dodging a tanto swipe.
They clash heavily, the man looking suddenly tired over their blades. Sai breaks their hold, missing a swipe to Kakashi-senpai’s ribs when he responds, twisting, “Unfortunately. I recommend not trying to understand them, it’ll improve your quality of life.”
He’s good at taking the advice of his seniors, though he doesn’t yet burn his scroll of observations and theories. Team Seven’s various dramas continue and he firmly places their social enigma out of mind, focusing on his jobs in Intelligence and ANBU and the new pigments the ink shop will be receiving courtesy of Tsunade-sama’s broadened trade agreements. He joins a monthly plein-air group at the behest of Yamato-taicho and makes more acquaintances (he thinks). Sai buys a recipe book that Sakura recommended and attempts a soup dumpling that comes out well, filling his new apartment (which he finds he prefers over barracks) with nearly-visible scents.
The only times he really prods at the persistent mystery of Team Seven are when Ino (“I’m not even twenty, Sai, Yamanaka-san makes me sound like an old crone and you already address me as Beautiful half the time.”) drags him to food stalls or her family’s greenhouse labs, chattering over cold cases and botanical byproducts, the psychology journals coming in from Kumo and recent literature until her curiosity gets the better of her.
Sai was confused the first time she asked, seeing as her relationship to Sakura was much closer and longer than his to any of them, which would thus provide her a greater wealth of information on the topic.
In between sips of her iced tea, Ino said, “Yeah, but I mostly see Forehead when she’s not with them and geez that girl can deflect and live in self-denial. Like, she’s had a thing for Sasuke forever but then he went off his rocker and they got all murdery at each other, yeah? And since Naruto came back, they’ve been so touchy-touchy. But everytime I bring up anything romance, she either pretends she’s getting paged and ditches to the hospital or changes the subject to me and grills me about -” Ino’s sea-green eyes flickered away from him to the flower arrangement on their café table, “well, whatever. She’s a dead end - for now.”
Sai sipped his own tea, filing away her observations (valuable as always) as she continued. “So, you, my dear Sai, have a different set of information than I do, since you all spar together and see them in the same place. Combine your exceptional information gathering skills and my superb understanding of relationships and we should be able to get an answer.” She smiled, her pink lips drawing into something he’d label mischievous, and said, “Or force an answer, if it comes to it.”
He felt a pang in his stomach and decided to order a pastry; his breakfast must not have been sufficient.
Ino’s evaluation of his skills was accurate, so he shared his findings and watched her brilliant mind work.
Sai simply gathers observations rather than making theories. Ino’s understanding of relationships is superb, and when they discuss their investigations she lays out her reasonings clearly, unexpectedly patient in her explanations. She truly is a master of the social world.
There’s evidence for an impending whole-team cataclysm, stunted relationships, fucked up reacquaintance rituals, love triangles in all directions, and the quite stressful idea of a highly-charged threesome in progress. Sai makes the sane decision to ponder none of these options and simply records any occurrences he deems noteworthy.
Obviously, their tempers and impulse control falter when in each other’s presence. Sakura in particular is quick to snap at the Uchiha. Naruto hangs off the both of them, even if it ends violently. Sasuke lets them steal from his plate at team dinners but cuts a glare when Sai looks his way. When they pin each other in spars, the duration they stay pressed together lengthens. Sakura blushes around them at times, but she blushes frequently anyways.
Sai reports his findings during his and Ino’s outings, where she compliments the variety of information he’s gathered. Ino thinks and mutters under her breath, and Sai picks up more of the wide range of interpersonal interpretations one can make. Sometimes the other members of Team Ten join them, Choji contributing to Ino’s brainstorms and Shikamaru rolling his eyes and flicking his lighter. Sai has learned well, by this point, that one can show derision but feel affection at the same time, a variation of “teasing”. Shikamaru, when he gives up on napping, teaches Sai how to play shogi. It’s a meditative but intriguing game that, apparently, can reveal one’s strategic personality.
As a result of Ino’s investigation, he begins to notice his teammates about the village more frequently. He’s sure Kakashi-senpai would advise against it, but his brain can’t help but file away what he sees.
Sasuke and Naruto push buttons constantly and do not relent in the face of heavy foot traffic. Naruto gets an uppercut in front of the Hokage Tower as Sai returns from a mission, and Sasuke gets an elbow to the ribs as they exit a corner store while he browses across the street. They topple a table in Yakiniku Q trying to wrestle with their remaining arms. Naruto drapes his across the Uchiha when they leave the Godaime’s office and he doesn’t shrug him off.
He does the same to Sakura, though in crowded areas she pushes or punches him off. He sees them eating at Ichiraku’s, leaning in enough to touch arms. She removes his whining face from the Mission Assignments room with a hand shoving his back, though she keeps her palm pressed against him even past the crowd. When Sai suffers a lung perforation and is stuck in the hospital, Sakura checks him over personally and Naruto barges into his room with a bento and anmitsu for her and a coloring book for him. He was delirious, but he’s pretty sure she grinned and kissed his cheek.
He sees Sakura and Sasuke together the most often. While Sakura appears to live at the hospital, she’s also been the Godaime’s Number Two gopher for years. The Uchiha, as the newly instated Number One gopher (taking over for Shizune-san, who decided to relieve some of the pressure off Sakura’s back in the medical offices), encounters her frequently in the administrative hallways. Sai, whose missions tend to require direct reports, happens upon them sometimes, walking side by side and grimacing under impossibly tall stacks of paperwork. They make a scene in front of the Godaime’s secretary, Sasuke cowering in the face of Sakura’s most pissed expression, angry hissing, and the finger inching closer and closer to his vulnerable sternum. She’ll check his amputation in a corner of the Jounin lounge, backs turned for a semblance of privacy. He’ll hold onto the back or sleeve of her top as they walk through the traffic between the Tower and the hospital.
They’re all together less often, Naruto flitting about the village’s various departments in an effort to learn its ins and outs, the others busy with Tsunade-sama and her demands. Before they meet for a team dinner, he sees them glued together on one side of the booth, though they unstick after noticing him and their sensei trailing in. They lounge, piled on a thick branch and certainly using chakra to keep steady, what with Naruto’s wiggling. Sai passes the new Training Ground Three, complete with a memorial stone, on his way to the plein-air meeting spot and hears the tones of Naruto’s serious voice, Sasuke’s barking responses, and Sakura’s alternating shouts and detached, clipped comments. He stays out of eyesight and does the truly inadvisable thing, turning over the possibilities of their strange conversation as he paints a gurgling creek.
“Oh, it’s so something romantic,” Ino declares as they sit under a tree for a picnic, Sai sketching her relaxed form as they finish eating. “All the touching? Sasuke would literally burn anyone else to death. How often they see each other? I don't even see Shika and Chouji that much. I swear I saw dust on her bookshelf last time I was over, which didn’t happen even when she was pulling nonstop shifts, so she’s definitely frequenting someone’s place. It’s not me, no fucking way is it Kakashi-sensei’s shoebox, so she’s gotta be over at the boys’ all the time.”
Sai hums, inking the branches and leaves spread above Ino. “Couldn’t she be spending time with her parents? She mentioned wanting to see them more once rebuilding slowed down.”
Ino chews a grape, expression as sour as the fruit. “Yeah, no. She was having dinners with them for a while, but they got into a huge fight a few months ago. Her parents retired and want to move to Tea, and they thought she would just drop everything and go with them.”
“Ah.” Sakura’s dedication to her life in Konoha is fierce. “I can see how that would be an issue. So… that does make Naruto and Sasuke’s apartment the most likely location.”
“Exactly. But they’re all so weird in different ways around each other, as you gathered. So the question remains: what directions are those sweet, sweet feelings going in?” Ino huffs, twirling her silky hair. “I’m leaning towards threesome at this point, but I need that confirmation. Honestly, I’m not sure what’s worse between that and a whacked love triangle at this point.”
The suggestion of bark dries on his parchment as he responds, “I share your sentiment. Either way, the likelihood of a destructive outcome is high.”
“Ugh.” Her nose scrunches in disdain. “Well, keep an eye out for any of those overt romantic signs I pointed out last time we people-watched. Maybe we can get ahead of… whatever it is.”
“Of course, Ino. Mitigating disaster to Konoha is our duty as shinobi.” He blows on the shining ink as she scoots over to get a look at his work.
“Sai, this is gorgeous! And not just cause I’m in it,” she says, smiling. “I love how you stylized the tree, you should do more botanicals!”
He returns her smile, bashful for some reason. “I’m glad you like it. It is a beautiful piece.” He thinks Ino’s cheeks might be flushing, though it could be a trick of the warm sunlight breaking through the eaves. “If you’d allow me, I would gladly use your greenhouses as reference material.”
So Sai observes and observes as the weeks go by. Sakura and Sasuke spar prior to training and come to a deadlock in a field of craters and burnt grass, Sasuke with a kunai to her throat and Sakura a millimeter from crushing his esophagus. Sai counts how many seconds pass as they pant in each other’s faces, not breaking eye contact: a record-breaking two minutes and thirteen seconds. Naruto, sitting atop a post halfway to a stretch, stares unblinkingly and does not unfreeze until Yamato-taicho pops out of the ground in front of him. He topples off the post and proceeds to exercise his well-used vocal cords.
The romantic theories are seeming more likely by the day, unfortunately. Kakashi-senpai and Yamato-taicho are certainly above contemplating their students’ love lives, so Sai is glad he has someone to strategize with. Empathize with, as well.
The Uchiha reaches a probation milestone, returning to the mission roster in a limited capacity and only permitted to join Team Kakashi outside the village. He grumbles, but his face loses some tension the first time they pass under the gates, ferrying Sakura and her precious supply of vaccinations to three towns in the south of the Land of Fire.
They’re only accompanied by Kakashi-senpai, Yamato-taicho still slammed with reconstruction. The five of them are overkill, so it goes smoothly even with the increased number of bandits. There’s maximal bickering and minimal friendly fire under threat of their sensei’s glare. Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke continue to evade any reasonable social relationship. Sai does catch Sasuke asleep on Naruto’s lap as the blonde takes watch on the way back, which is immediately reported to Ino upon return.
They don’t take another mission as a team for two months, so Sai returns to short ANBU missions and chatting with Ino and Anko-san in the Intelligence building break room. Sakura slugs Naruto in the blossoming new red light district for some reason and naps on the Uchiha’s shoulder in the library. He also sees her backflipping with Rock Lee through the streets, which he finds himself slightly concerned about.
When they depart south again, it’s because the bandits decided to make themselves a bigger problem, amassing some of the shinobi who never reported home to their cause. That cause seems to be robbing and assaulting refugees, the slowly stabilizing number of merchants on the road, and killing those running relief effort missions for their large stocks of supplies.
The attitude is a bit more tense as they track down the bandits’ base, none happy with the situation. Though they aren’t expecting hostages, Sakura checks and rechecks her supplies in the cave two miles away from their destination, muttering about evacuation plans. Sasuke, in a daring display to his small audience, grabs her by her muscled waist to drag her away from her kit, Naruto slamming it closed.
“Sakura-chan! You’re good! You stocked, like, half the hospital in that box. Chill out,” Naruto says, moving the kit behind Kakashi-senpai, who swiftly blocks her view of her vast array of supplies. “We’re gonna be kicking ass tomorrow, not hauling ass. There’s been no reports of hostages, we checked . Let’s go the fuck to sleep, it’s not any of our watches yet.”
Sakura growls as she’s dragged towards the bedrolls. She wriggles but doesn’t exercise strength, having sworn a truce with her teammates for the duration of the mission under the strict watch of Yamato-taicho. “Whatever! It pays to be prepared, you morons! I just need to recount my needles, you messed me up, please -”
Sasuke cuts her off firmly, “No. Bed,” dropping her on the blanketed ground. She, predictably, shoots up to make a futile escape attempt. “It’s not the war, Sakura. It’s a group of a hundred, maximum. You could take them yourself - you can afford to sleep, dumbass,” he says, quietly.
She stops fighting, dropping back to the bedroll with a sigh. “Yeah. Whatever.” Sasuke turns back to the group, searching through his pack; this is a mistake Sai sees coming from a mile away. Sakura, uncaring that she still has four sets of eyes on her, tries to scramble past him. Kakashi-senpai doesn’t even take a defensive posture in front of her kit.
Sasuke, continuing his daring displays, catches her waist once more and throws her back down. Her limbs flail like a dying bug and he makes the bold decision to flop on top of her, creating a successful cover with his greater height. Sakura groans, somehow not drowned out by Naruto’s squawking as he rushes to add to her restraints.
“Get off, you idiots!” can be heard, though muffled.
“No way, Sakura-chan! If this is the only way to keep you in bed then we’ll stay here aaaaallllllllllll night,” Naruto croons.
“…Fucking shit, fine , just get off and let me breathe,” comes from the bottom of the pile. Her tone is distinctly defeated, and the other menaces slide off partially, still draping limbs across her in an effort to continue her capture. She starts, “But -”
Sasuke slaps his hand over her mouth, muffling the following shout. Naruto pokes her Byakugou, entreating, “You can count your fifty different kinds of needles or whatever in the morning. Go to sleeeeep, Sakura-chan.”
She nods beneath their hands, rolling her eyes but looking appeased.
The loudmouths finally settle down with some shuffling and muttering but remain entangled. Sai exchanges glances with Kakashi-senpai, who just looks jaded, and Yamato-taicho, who observed the whole thing with brows raised, a touch of bafflement to his expression. Sai, vaguely amused by the continued Team Seven shitshow, beds down and thinks that Ino will be highly entertained by this mission’s observations.
The next day solidifies that thought. Extremely well.
They approach the base camp in the murky dawn light as the current guard shift nears its midpoint and becomes weary, others still sound asleep. The watch goes out easily to Sai’s creatures and Sakura’s genjutsu-chakra scalpel strategy. Sai feels a prickle of apprehension, because his missions have been going smoothly for the past few months, including the last Team Kakashi mission; he remembers tales of Team Seven’s missions from hell and realizes, belatedly, that he is accompanying the full Team Seven. For the second time. Everything’s gone to plan so far, and he’s not particularly superstitious, but something in his gut turns.
As they continue through the camp, the others join them, suppressing their chakra and taking out or subduing sleeping bandits. Sakura and Sasuke’s genjutsu help cover them as they approach the large command tent and those surrounding it.
Unfortunately for them all, Naruto goes after a ninja (likely with sensory skills) who wakes up and promptly shouts the equivalent of an alarm bell, shattering their stealth effort; they made it through a solid number before being caught, which Sai counts as a success for this crew. The guy and his tentmate are quickly silenced, but they’ve done their damage.
Sai, from his slightly more distant position, sees the flaps of the command tent open. Even more unfortunately for them, fifty additional bandits and ninja pour out. It seems they interrupted a very early morning meeting for new recruits. Sai recognizes some from the recent bingo book, and then realizes that some is actually many because they all have their hair in ponytails. A unified appearance is good for an organization.
At least it's not hostages.
Sai falls into formation with Sakura and Kakashi-senpai, Naruto aligning with Sasuke and Yamato-taicho at their backs on the other side of the crowd, which quickly riles into an unorganized mob. It’s… messy.
Sakura takes close range, shattering rib cages and cutting arteries as she stomps the ground into disarray, unbalancing those unused to her tactics. Kakashi stays between them, firing kunai and jutsu left and right, flickering between any opponents who get past Sakura. Sai sends tigers to corral the sides of the mob, but loses focus on them as some remainders from the tents try to stealth behind him, almost getting him with a chakra-string senbon that whorls back to its owner, a woman who would look vicious were it not for what Ino would call her “unfashionable” side ponytail. She’s definitely one of the ones new to the look.
His tanto takes her down easily enough, but more nin and bandits with hairstyles of varying levels of chic follow behind. It takes a minute, but he whittles them down enough to send another wave of backup to the brawlers. He’s happy to finish off the last one with a quick-acting toxin (a gift from Ino) coating his shuriken, not only due to Sakura’s sudden call for cover from him and Kakashi-senpai. She dodges through the crowd, severing tendons when she can as she approaches the other trio, quickly swiping Sasuke into a princess carry and hopping behind some of the non-burned tents. He kinda looked like he was choking on some blood, so having a healer on the team comes in handy once again.
Sai and Kakashi-senpai thin their side of the crowd, Kakashi eventually mingling with Naruto and his various clones, breaking them into smaller pockets along with Yamato-taicho’s Mokuton. It’s not long before the last bandit, hair pulled in greasy pigtails, blubbers on the wrong end of Kakashi-senpai’s blade.
They sigh and bleed in the aftermath, taking a moment before starting clean-up, Sakura supporting the Uchiha as he limps back to the battlefield. Later, Sai will find out that he’d flickered away from a sharp earth jutsu right into a serrated sword, ripping up his liver in the process. Naruto teases him but leaves him be with a nudge.
Travel feels lighter on the way back, though a tenseness emanates from Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto. Camp that night is well-situated, a close-enough walk to a river and removed enough from civilization for a fire. Kakashi and Naruto trap their little glade top to bottom and they’re joined by eight barking dogs as Sasuke returns clean of his liver-blood with rabbits and a few sprigs of rosemary.
Sai draws his fiftieth overall rendition of Uhei, whose smooth curves call to the swirl of his brush. Yamato-taicho bickers with Naruto, preparing the rabbits alongside some of their packed food. Sakura checks Sasuke’s torso as Kakashi lounges in the trees, reading and stroking Pakkun’s fur.
Dinner is more flavorful than camp food tends to be, and everyone finishes satisfied (though Naruto finishes first. Ha!). They all need to wash off the muck of battle, Kakashi rushing off to the river with his pack for a “scenic forest bath”. Sakura takes her turn when he and his wet dogs get back to camp. She heads off as they work through their kapers.
Half an hour passes, the sun creeping towards the treetops, before they hear the creaking of trunks in the direction of the riverbank. Ah. She must be taking more time to shake off the post-battle energy.
Naruto trots off quickly, the Uchiha following less than a minute later.
Another ten minutes pass in the quiet of the evening, a few trees falling over in the background. Kakashi, taking notice of Yamato’s growing impatience for a bath (he got hit with a nasty slime jutsu), sighs, pleading, “Sai, will you be a good kohai and go check on our troublemakers for your poor, tired seniors?”
Sai raises a brow at the resident sloth but treks through the woods anyways. He’s not nearly as dirtied as the others, but he’s got ash and mud and ink crusting his skin and would appreciate removing it all.
He tree-hops, as any proper Konoha shinobi does, keeping an eye out for pink-haired medics liable to topple his perches.
Luckily, he hears them before he sees them. Not that that’s uncommon.
“- the war, Sasuke , you can afford to not be fucking reckless in battle, I swear -” comes Sakura’s irritated voice from the riverbank.
“Shut up!”
“Yeah bastard, listen to Sakura-chan! We went through all that shit to get you back, don’t go dying on -"
“Well you didn’t have to ‘go through all that shit,’ I didn’t ask for your stupid savior complex or help,” the Uchiha hisses, “So leave me the fuck alone and let me do my job.”
There’s a pause before Sai hears the shaking of another tree, hurrying his feet forward before that tree escalates to half the forest. It doesn’t take long for the terrible trio to come into sight, what with Sakura and Naruto’s blindingly bright heads of hair. He thinks, briefly, that this may be a conversation he should not be eavesdropping on; however, he has information to gather, baths to ensure, and possible destructive outcomes to mitigate.
Sai has a balcony seat to the view of Team Seven clustered at the base of a nearby trunk, Sasuke pinned to it by Sakura with all her force, face distinctly unhappy, with Naruto crowding at their sides to menace the Uchiha. Their tones lower, snipping and hissing more than shouting, so Sai circulates chakra through his audial system to boost his hearing as Kakashi-senpai taught him.
Naruto is saying, deadly serious, “We’ve already told you, idiot , we care about you whether you ask for it or not. Your crabby ass can’t get rid of us, don’t pull your loner deflection bullshit.”
Sasuke’s grinding teeth are audible. “You’re both morons with no sense of self-preservation.”
Sakura cocks her head, leaning further into his space. It must be intimidating, because he can hear the Uchiha gulp. “Pot, kettle,” she says, intent, almost under her breath. Naruto leans into her side, reaching out to grab the waist of Sasuke’s top, anchoring them together. It’s intimacy, deep and earnest and devout (probably) in a way Sai has yet to observe in the non-Team Seven population.
Sai sees Sasuke’s arm lash out, fingers twisting the damp collar of Sakura’s clean shirt and he tenses, readying himself in the second-long pause, scrolls in hand. Neither of the other team members react.
Then Sasuke yanks her collar forward, pulling Sakura until their mouths clash together. She doesn’t fight the motion, though with her strength she could have chosen to remain leaden - a statement in itself. Throughout their forceful, open-mouthed kissing, Sakura never wavers in keeping him pinned, pressing him further and further into the tree, enough so that Sai worries, momentarily, that he’s actually being sucked into it Mokuton-style. Naruto stays connected to the both of them, appearing entirely comfortable while his teammates swap spit next to his skull.
The first to break away is Sakura, growling out, “If you ever think about pulling that shit again I’m inviting Shishou to our next spar for dodging practice.” Sasuke doesn’t have long to chase her lips or scowl in terror before she returns, all but slamming his head into the bark in her fervor. A tanned hand threads into his lengthening hair and he leans into it.
When Naruto pulls his handful, Sasuke gasps, detaching his face from Sakura. He’s promptly twisted in Naruto’s direction, lips caught before he can say a word. Their kiss is deep, less frantic than Sakura’s but just as voracious. And then Sakura’s mouth goes for the Uchiha’s neck and he makes a sound that is completely incongruous with his brooding asshole personality.
Sai promptly decides against booting them from the river and books his way back to camp to bask in the presence of sane adults. As he steps past the innermost traps, he looks to them and states, face blank in a semblance of old comfort, “They have yet to finish washing. Yamato-taichou, I recommend bathing… far upstream, if you’d like to go ahead and clean yourself.”
The man just sprints off through the woods, clearly in a hurry and regretful he didn’t do so sooner. He looks to Kakashi-senpai on his branch, who appears more put-out than he’s ever seen. Sai settles down to wait for his own turn to bathe, enjoying the warmth of the fire as he wonders over his observations, no matter how ill-advised doing so may be.
The excessively convoluted trio eventually return with nary a damp hair out of place nor a suggestive bruise in sight. Were it not for Sasuke’s pink ears, the satisfied air they carry, or the brief sight he gets of Sakura groping Naruto’s backside, he could believe all they’d gotten up to at the river was a run of the mill tussle.
Ino will be pleased he can confirm their physical involvement with each other to such an extent; as such, their next outing should be expected to last a full day. Perhaps she’ll finally have the leverage to get Sakura talking.
Should he prepare a small celebration for himself and Ino? Sai’s gained enough social confidence to host a friend in his apartment (probably); the resolution of investigations has been cause for celebration in the past. Thus, if Ino is satisfied after interrogating Sakura, perhaps showing his appreciation for all her efforts in their personal case will… make her happy.
Sai wants to make her happy.
Definitely.