Full Circle

Full Circle

chapter 1

Uchiha Sasuke stared, stone faced, at his cheerfully smiling mother and calmly satisfied father. They absolutely could 'not' be serious. There was no way they could possibly be so cruel to him. Was there?

"Isn't it wonderful darling?" The endearment cut into him, though he didn't show it in the least. She sounded as though she honestly expected him to be thrilled.

"I know you're a little shy and you have a bit of a hard time with girls. We were starting to worry dear. You've never been on a single date. Now that you're old enough to start a family of your own, we thought it was high time we stepped in. Your father and I would hate to see you waste your youth and end up spending your life alone."

"So you thought it was a good idea to take the decision out of my hands completely?" the dark haired young man asked bluntly. His mother waved it off.

"You needed a push darling. You let yourself get so distracted, holed away by yourself all the time, that you seem to forget that the rest of the world exists.

It became all too obvious that if we continued to leave you to your own devices, you would never make the effort to find a nice girl. You're a veritable hermit Sasuke. Everyone needs some human interaction, some affection and companionship. You'd waste away without it eventually."

"You're arranging a marriage for me," he stated coldly. "What century are we living in?"

"Arranged marriage is a proud and long standing tradition of the Uchiha family." His father intoned solemnly with a look of mild disapproval at his son.

"We wouldn't have taken such measures if you had brought a prospective spouse before us who met with our approval, like your brother did. However, since you haven't and it doesn't appear that you ever will, there is no reason not to choose one for you."

"Oh don't look at us that way darling. We truly want what's best for you. This isn't some kind of punishment and there's nothing wrong with an arranged marriage. Our own marriage was arranged by our parents and we have been quite happy with it all of these years.

Young people often don't make the best of choices anyway. Itachi chose for himself and things didn't turn out... quite as well as they might have... I've wished many times since that we had picked a nice girl for him ourselves."

"All the more reason to stay single," said Sasuke "Itachi is the firstborn and has already given you your heir. I don't see why I should have to bother with a wife at all. I can assure you mother, that I'm more than comfortable with the idea of a life of peaceful solitude."

His mother sighed.

"Darling, you say that now but I'm afraid that one day you'll wake up lonely and regretful."

"Don't be so ungrateful Sasuke. We've taken all of the 'bother' out of it for you. Your arguing is only upsetting your mother." He checked his watch, ignoring his son's harsh glare.

"The Harunos will be here soon to go over the agreement. I want you to go and make yourself presentable and leave your sour attitude in your room when you come back down. You will be entertaining Miss Sakura this evening and we want you to be on your best behavior.

You have nothing to complain about certainly. Sakura is a lovely and well mannered girl and she comes from excellent stock. The Harunos are a fine upstanding family. Old money, and certainly not the sort that would try to take advantage of your position.

She was the very best option for you and I do 'not' want to have to search for a suitable replacement, so don't do anything to offend her. Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Sasuke bit out. He stood without another glance at either of them and stalked out of the room. With the terrible energy that was rolling off of him, the quiet click of the door might as well have been a gunshot. Uchiha Fugaku looked at his wife.

"That went fairly well," he said.

Sasuke inwardly fumed all the way to his room. He 'hated' girls! Truth be told, he hated a lot of things... Ok, so most things, but at the moment, girls were the significant problem. One girl in particular, though he was certain that 'all' of them were the spawn of Satan.

He had been 'hounded' by females since puberty. Uchiha Sasuke was apparently every girl's idea of prince charming. He was rich, handsome and prestigious.

Every last one of them dreamed of being swept off her feet by the dark, mysterious, drop dead gorgeous boy and he suspected that every last one of them was nothing but a gold digging little whore. He couldn't possibly trust one of them to actually want him only for the pleasure of his company.

After all, Itachi had thought he'd found someone who really cared and even he had been fooled. That bitch had let her true colors show the second she had discovered that she was pregnant with his heir, assured in the knowledge that he would never divorce her. The Uchiha family would not have tolerated the scandal of such thing anyway but with a child involved, her position was most definitely cemented.

Sasuke had been determined that a similar fate would never befall him and had steered clear of any fraternization with the opposite sex whatsoever. Upholding this vow had actually taken almost zero willpower on his part. Females tended to be terribly annoying anyway.

But now, of all the girls his parents could have chosen, Haruno Sakura was probably the one he was most likely to end up strangling on their wedding night. Not that there would be a wedding night. The thought caused a nasty shudder to creep over him.

Sasuke was not the type to simply fume about a problem. Fuming was always quickly overtaken by 'plotting' and by the time he was ready to make his way back downstairs, his considerable mental capacity was already being geared toward finding some way of canceling these unwanted negotiations.

It was highly unlikely that there would be any possible way to offend Sakura enough to get her to protest the whole thing, despite his father's warning. That irritating pile of pink had been dying to possess him for as long as they had known each other, which was a long...long time.

This may have been one of the deciding factors for his parents as they considered possible candidates. They probably thought that he would be more comfortable with her than a stranger and that she might actually be able to put up with his surly demeanor.

In any case, they appeared to be quite firm on the matter. Sasuke was certain though that it was his mother who was really the brains behind the operation, so to speak. She would be the one to convince. No doubt she honestly thought that this would be best for him in the long run.

She really did care for her son's happiness and she probably had fond (if naive) dreams that he would come to her one day showering her with gratitude for her meddling.

If there was only some way to make her truly believe that marrying Sakura would make him completely miserable for life.

The youngest Uchiha stepped into the parlour just in time to see his parents warmly welcoming the Haruno family. Sakura's mooning, love-sick (or maybe just lustful) gaze found him immediately and she stared until her daze was broken by the voice of Fugaku addressing her. Sasuke glared poison darts as she blushed prettily at having been caught daydreaming about him.

"Good evening Uchiha sama," she said in a quiet, respectful tone. "It's lovely to see you again." Sasuke rolled his eyes as both of his parents smiled in approval.

"Oh for the love of God!" he thought to himself with a quiet huff. "Talk about sugary. As if anybody that sweet could be for real."

Sasuke knew for a fact that she wasn't for real. He'd caught her being a total bitch on many occasions. Never to himself of course so he hadn't thought it was worth the trouble to call her on it. Now he seriously wished he had... for all of two seconds before he realized that had she been out of the running then he'd simply be stuck in this position with some other aggravating female.

After a dinner that was apparently fully enjoyable for everyone but him, his parents went off to begin going over their agreement with the Harunos, leaving Sasuke to 'socialize' with his fiancee to be.

Left alone in a room with the object of her nearly life long obsession, Sakura began to rattle on about how wonderful it was that they were finally going to be together and how she already had the wedding all planned out, while Sasuke sat and grit his teeth.

Every time he looked at her all he saw was the image of a ball and chain with a hideous pink wig. When she began to make suggestions for the engagement party and actually had the audacity to solicit his opinion, he couldn't take it any longer.

"Would you stop it!" he hissed. "You're getting way ahead of yourself here. I am not going to marry you, ever!"

A look of shock passed over the girl's face for a moment but as she recovered, it was replaced with a smug smile.

"Of course you are Sasuke kun," she chirped. "Your parents won't let you get away with breaking the agreement once it's set. It would bring shame on your family if it got out that you didn't honor your word."

"It would bring shame on your family if it were to get out that you were so unbelievably ugly that I would actually risk my family's honor just to keep from having to touch you," Sasuke responded casually. "Do you really think you want to go spreading it around?"

"Your parents would be furious Sasuke!" she retorted with a thunderous expression that was highly unattractive. "They could end up cutting you off. You might as well give it up now. Who else would you marry anyway?" she added with a toss of her glossy pink hair. "We're perfect for each other. We were always meant to be together. After we're married we'll ..."

"That's it!" Sasuke snapped jumping up from his seat. He was putting a stop to this, right now. No way in hell was he marrying this utter bitch and he wasn't going to be marrying anyone else either.

Even as he stormed down the hall in search of his parents, he was still mulling over in his head what exactly he would say to his mother that could stop her cold in her attempts at matchmaking.

He wasn't quite sure until the very last second when he threw open the study doors and marched directly up to his mother. He opened his mouth and the words just tumbled from his lips.

"Mother I'm gay!"

(A/N; Well there you go. It's shiny and new! Yay! I love starting a new story. But don't worry, I love finishing a story just as much.)