Sakura whisks the kitten out of Marco's hands, turns around and gone back toward the cage with nary a pause to give Eva an opening to actually help. Partly she doesn't want anyone to see her face, if her shoulders are tense in a mixture of surprise, shock, and (honestly) irritation.
Then sinking realization that if one person makes this mistaken assumption, than it might be less of an assumption than she assumes it to otherwise be.
The saving grace to this is her look of horror is directed away from either party, and the kitten is the only one to feel her unsteady hands for the beat before she's in control again. She forces her tone light, grasping for what seems to be -- humor, maybe. She doesn't know. Parents don't spend a great deal of time embarrassing their kids in public, if she should have remembered, with how Ino and her father interacted years ago, or how she'd felt her own mother impose on her while she was in the Academy.
Even if back then it had more of a taste and feel for dictations on how she should be doing in school, if she was doing well, if she was getting along with the other kids (which wasn't the point, she said once, if the rest of the time it was yes, yes, I'm doing well, Iruka-sensei says I'm really understanding this, why do you ask, it's fine, thank you, I'll be down for dinner, I already did my chores). Nothing like this, if she expected it once, if Sasuke had ever been the kind of fantasy she'd created him into being. Back when infatuation was infatuation, before she knew him, and before she really got a taste of love.
"It's all right," she says, an upward lilt in her voice. "I've got him in hand."
Is she supposed to blush? This feels more like flushing, a tie between anger and embarrassment and even more personal embarrassment as denial wavers. Making a fool of herself, being more stupidly, willingly blind because it's easier.
In a way, she wishes that the rising urge to yell comes to mind. Something high and outraged, turning to make a fierce denial of anything of the sort. It's why she made the kitten grab, forestalling herself, since as much as she does like Marco (ass that he is), and respects Eva (more as a paragon of herself and motherhood and survival than for anything especially bonding between the two), they aren't her people. Her people have only recently appeared, and none of those three (four, with the Mizukage) are the ones she relates to as peers. Fears, adores, respects, yes. But she'll no more turn around and deck Marco in the face for being part perpetrator in this than she will Tsunade, if the reasons are vastly different.
Naruto, she might have. Naruto will have said something right afterward, or made some noise she could take offense to, focus on, and then there'd have been that safe avenue to express the anger that was more at herself than anyone here. She's been stupid. She's been in denial.
Latching the cage door closed, she says, "I'm not sure if Earth has a similar saying, but we have one in Konoha that goes something like... Speak of tomorrow, and the rats in the ceiling laugh." She turns back toward them, smiling, subdued, awkward, and uncomfortable. "And you haven't even asked if we ninja believe in marriage."
no subject
Then sinking realization that if one person makes this mistaken assumption, than it might be less of an assumption than she assumes it to otherwise be.
The saving grace to this is her look of horror is directed away from either party, and the kitten is the only one to feel her unsteady hands for the beat before she's in control again. She forces her tone light, grasping for what seems to be -- humor, maybe. She doesn't know. Parents don't spend a great deal of time embarrassing their kids in public, if she should have remembered, with how Ino and her father interacted years ago, or how she'd felt her own mother impose on her while she was in the Academy.
Even if back then it had more of a taste and feel for dictations on how she should be doing in school, if she was doing well, if she was getting along with the other kids (which wasn't the point, she said once, if the rest of the time it was yes, yes, I'm doing well, Iruka-sensei says I'm really understanding this, why do you ask, it's fine, thank you, I'll be down for dinner, I already did my chores). Nothing like this, if she expected it once, if Sasuke had ever been the kind of fantasy she'd created him into being. Back when infatuation was infatuation, before she knew him, and before she really got a taste of love.
"It's all right," she says, an upward lilt in her voice. "I've got him in hand."
Is she supposed to blush? This feels more like flushing, a tie between anger and embarrassment and even more personal embarrassment as denial wavers. Making a fool of herself, being more stupidly, willingly blind because it's easier.
In a way, she wishes that the rising urge to yell comes to mind. Something high and outraged, turning to make a fierce denial of anything of the sort. It's why she made the kitten grab, forestalling herself, since as much as she does like Marco (ass that he is), and respects Eva (more as a paragon of herself and motherhood and survival than for anything especially bonding between the two), they aren't her people. Her people have only recently appeared, and none of those three (four, with the Mizukage) are the ones she relates to as peers. Fears, adores, respects, yes. But she'll no more turn around and deck Marco in the face for being part perpetrator in this than she will Tsunade, if the reasons are vastly different.
Naruto, she might have. Naruto will have said something right afterward, or made some noise she could take offense to, focus on, and then there'd have been that safe avenue to express the anger that was more at herself than anyone here. She's been stupid. She's been in denial.
Latching the cage door closed, she says, "I'm not sure if Earth has a similar saying, but we have one in Konoha that goes something like... Speak of tomorrow, and the rats in the ceiling laugh." She turns back toward them, smiling, subdued, awkward, and uncomfortable. "And you haven't even asked if we ninja believe in marriage."