Through the Rearview Mirror
by Diana-san

The car was a person's sanctuary just like the shower or the bed. Being able to belt out songs in the shower or getting to stay in your pajamas until 4 in the afternoon in bed was an unspoken right of passage. No one was allowed to criticize or judge you for that. It was that simple. And when it came to the car, well, it was another holy ground.

Some spend the time to do their makeup in the car. Others take a quick nap while parked next to a tree. And then there were some who blasted their car radio and singing the words to the lyrics of a song while tapping their fingers against their steering wheel to the beat. Usually reaches its peak during a waiting period for the traffic light to change from red to green. Haruno Sakura did all of the above.

But today she was singing a different anthem. Instead of her usual car tunes of pop music and electronic dance music, she had switched to a radio station that seemed to be playing break up songs. Noting the irony, she allowed the dial to remain on that station.

Having just ended a terrible relationship, she was in that limbo stage where she knew it was right for her to break it off with her jerk of an ex yet she still missed him and was wondering if it was a mistake to throw away a two year relationship. She was already 25 and if she wanted to have kids by 27 then she would need to marry by 26 in order to enjoy a year of honeymoon bliss. Since she wanted to date the guy for at least two years before marriage, then that meant she would have to have met them last year.

Sakura sighed. She was already behind schedule in her life goals. As she stared mournfully at the car in front of her, Adele's "Someone Like You" came on the radio. As the sad soulful tune began to fill the empty sounds of her car, Sakura gripped her steering wheel harder.

Sasuke tapped the edge of his steering wheel impatiently as he waited for the traffic light to change. He could swear that this particular light was the longest damn light in the entire city. As soon as it turns green, it would turn back red in just ten seconds. Not to mention that it was a left turn light so every single car would stall in the intersection as they take their sweet time to complete the turn and effectively waste the entire ten seconds. He counted that there was about ten cars in front of him. That was like an extra five minutes wait given the current rate they were going.

He cursed silently in his head with some curses thrown at the ridiculously long traffic light and some curses at the slow drivers. But most of the curses were directed towards Naruto. Sasuke regretted ever promising to pick up his roommate from the gym. Right now, Naruto could walk home for all he cared.

Sasuke continued to tap his fingers against the steering wheel as he glanced out the window. Trees and nothing but trees to the left of him. He glanced out the other window but it was just the back end of a red sedan. Sighing, he turned on the radio to a random station.

He didn't usually listen to the radio since he hated most of the music on there but he was too bored out of his mind today to care what he listened to. It could be a guy preaching the gospel for all he cared. The first station that came up was some mainstream Top 40s station so he settled for it although if it started playing "Anaconda", he would probably kill himself right then and there.

He glanced at his rearview mirror and was surprised to see a girl with pink hair scowling at her wheel. He smirked at the sight and continued to observe through his rearview mirror. She was probably as bitter as he was about being stuck at such a long traffic light.

Suddenly, the scowl left her face and was quickly replaced by a sullen face. Her head was swaying back and forth as if she listening to some song and dancing along. Only instead of a happy song, it seemed more to be funeral music as the look on her face could only be deemed as "my dog just died and my world has stopped spinning". The irony was that whatever she was listening to seemed to match the same music coming out of his radio station.

He was no lip reader but his perfect 20/20 vision could see that she was doing a damn good lip-synching of Adele's soulful piano ballad. If his back window wasn't fogging up, then he could have sworn he also saw a tear fall down her face.

By the time the song ended, the cars in front of him had already moved up and he was finally at the front of the line as he made his turn left. The car behind him quickly followed after him. Sasuke smirked, mostly pleased that the car behind him wasn't a lagger and seized the opportunity to complete the turn instead of dilly-dallying and stopping to wait on the yellow light.

He drove straight as he stopped and signaled right. He assumed that his right turn would meant the last he would see of lip-synching girl but he was wrong. He glanced at his mirror one last time and saw that her right headlight was blinking yellow as well.

As Adele's song came to an end, Sakura cursed under her breath. The red light was taking damn forever and she had places to be even though she had no one to see. She crinkled her nose and sped up her car when she saw that the black Volvo was making its turn left. She wasn't going to waste anymore time being stuck behind a red light and she quickly turned as the light changed to yellow.

An ad on the radio station was playing but it quickly ended as she signaled to make a right turn. "Maybe I should have turned on my GPS," she murmured as she tried to recall which route was the fastest way to get to the gym. She hadn't gone in a long time to work out. Mostly, she had gained weight instead of lost weight while in a relationship. She figured that going to the gym was a good way to get herself back in good shape and hopefully meet single guys at the same time. It would also help her take her mind off her ex.

It had been six months since the break-up and she already saw through her newsfeed online that he was dating again. It irked her that he had found someone so fast and especially that he had found someone before she did. She knew she should have befriended him. Being friends with an ex was just not possible in her book. It was much too painful to see his happiness after what he did to her.

Yet, his ex did try to maintain their friendship if you can even call it that. A greeting for the holidays and her birthday because Facebook reminded him was not what she called a friendship. It would be better to just erase him completely from her life. She smiled smugly as she considered going on her phone right this moment to delete him right away.

But she was driving so that would have to wait until she reach the gym. Sakura hummed as the next song came on. It wasn't one she listened to often but it was one that fit perfectly the emotions she was feeling at that very moment.

Sasuke was intrigued by now as he drove down the familiar road to the gym that he and Naruto would frequent. The song that just came on the radio was Sara Bareilles' "Gonna Get Over You" and he remembered that song very clearly. Mostly because some random college girl during his senior year started playing it on her boombox and came up to him during his lunch break and announced that she was clearly "over him". He didn't know what that meant since he had never met the girl before.

Naruto had snickered and said that the girl, Karin, had sat behind them in lecture each morning and had a major crush on Sasuke since freshman year. Sasuke didn't care whether the girl had a crush on him or not. All he knew then was that Karin was making a fool of herself and annoying him at the same time. He had hated that song ever since but strangely, this time, it was not as annoying as he watched through his rearview mirror for the second time in a row.

Whatever angsty moment the pink-headed girl was feeling from before, it had all dissipated as she had a look of sass and arrogance as she sung along to the song. There was even hand dancing as she waved her index fingers in the air while still keeping both hands on the 10 and 2 position of the steering wheel.

He chuckled as he continued to drive although noting that the red Prius she was driving was still following him even after he made another left turn and then another right. When he arrived at the gym and began to signal to turn right into the parking lot, the red Prius did the same. He smirked at the coincidence that the two of them would end up going to the same end location.

Parking was difficult to find at that hour and he had just managed to snag a nice spot near the entrance. The red Prius drove past him and he could have sworn he saw the girl in the driver's seat cursed for having missed such a good parking spot.

Sasuke pulled out his phone as he sent a quick text to Naruto saying he was here. As he waited for a reply text, he saw that the car next to him was leaving. Somehow, the car that took the spot to replace the previous car was a red Prius.

"She must have circled around once already," he murmured. He tried not to stare out his driver's window but he couldn't help but turning just slightly to catch another glance at her. She was on her phone but she quickly looked away as she got out of her car.

He felt a vibration of his phone and he glanced down as he saw that Naruto had replied.

"Sorry! I forgot to text you earlier to say that I'm staying a bit longer at the gym. I'm going to workout with a friend for another two hours so I'll find another ride back. And don't eat my last cup ramen in the kitchen cupboard!"

Sasuke stared at the text as he cursed another foul word at Naruto for wasting his time. He glanced back outside and saw that the girl had went to her trunk. Sasuke contemplated for a moment and then decided to step out of his car. He had his gym bag in the back of the trunk for the rare occasion that he decided to use the gym. Normally, he just went running since he hated being around people at the gym.

As he opened his trunk, he snuck another glance at the girl and noticed that her hair was a lot more noticeably pink under the lighting of the parking lot lights. The tint of the car windows had downgraded the color by a lot. Judging from her looks entirely, he could see that she was not the type he would normally go for. Her hair was too bright of a pink and her eyes were green like emeralds. She was just too damn noticeable from a mile away. Up close, she was a beauty which made it all the more worse.

Sasuke hated attention and a girl like her would always draw attention. Yet, he couldn't help but feel strangely attracted to her for some reason. It could be her slightly large forehead or perhaps, it was the way she belted out two songs in her car without a care in the world.

She must have caught him looking because she glanced up and gave him a strange look before closing her trunk and slinging her gym bag over her shoulders. Sasuke glanced away and looked back into his trunk as he rummaged around for his gym bag. It wasn't hard to find since he was neat and didn't clutter his trunk like Naruto does. Sasuke wonders how many dirty gym socks would be in Naruto's trunk by now if Naruto actually drove to the gym instead of taking the bus from work.

With a slow walk, he followed the girl from behind as he tried not to walk his usual pace in order to keep behind her. It was then that he realized that she had a really nice butt.

The doors to the gym automatically slid open as she walked in and he followed behind after her.

"Sakura-chan!" a familiar voice called out.

Sasuke peered over the girl's head to look out in front of him and saw that it was Naruto. "What the hell?" he muttered underneath his breath.

"Sasuke? You're working out too?" Naruto called out to him in surprise. The girl turned around to see who Naruto was talking to and seemed surprised that it was him.

"Uh, yeah," he said quietly as he swung his gym bag over his shoulders.

"Oh, Sakura-chan! This is my roommate Sasuke! He's usually a douchebag but he can be nice sometimes," Naruto said to Sakura as he introduced the two strangers to each other.

"Shut up Naruto," Sasuke said as he eyed Sakura. "Nice to meet you," he said as he stuck out a hand for a handshake. The girl stared at it for a moment before sticking out her own hand to shake his. The moment their fingers touched, he felt a tingle through his body and immediately, he pulled back as soon as the handshake was over.

Sakura seemed to have noticed his reaction and she cocked her head to the side in curiosity. "Pleasure," she murmured. "I'm Naruto's high school friend."

"I guess we can all work out together, if that's okay with you Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked.

Sakura nodded and Sasuke gave a low grunt of approval.

"Okay, I'll wait here for the two of you to change!" Naruto piped up in excitement.

Sakura nodded and she glanced over at Sasuke as she turned to walk towards the back of the gym where the locker rooms were. Sasuke quickly followed behind as he walked besides her, this time keeping his pace to hers. He wondered if he should say something about how he saw her earlier but decided against it. Instead, he began to whistle softly.

Sakura froze as she recognized the tune of the song that Sasuke was whistling. It was the song she was just listening to ten minutes ago and it was also the song she was singing to loudly in the car on her way over here. Quickly, she snuck a glance over at Sasuke and wondered if there was a possibility that he could have seen her doing just that.

However, she dropped that idea when she realized how ridiculous it was because there were many cars on the road with her. Then again, he did arrive to the same location as she did. Also, at the same time.

"Sara Bareilles. Do you listen to her a lot?" she asked.

"Not really. But this girl was really going at it in her car to this song," he replied with a smile.

Sakura stared at him. There was no way that it could have been her. "Oh?" she echoed.

"Yeah, you wouldn't happen to drive a red Pruis, would you?" Sasuke asked, clearly hinting that it was her.

Sakura groaned. "Oh my god, you saw?!"

Sasuke smiled. "Don't worry. I'm sure you sounded very good."

"I happen to have been in choir in high school and college, thank you very much!" Sakura shot back.

"Then I would like to hear it sometime," he commented.

Sakura blinked back in surprise. She hadn't expect the conversation to turn out this way. She thought he was going to make fun of her for being a crazy car singer in her car but surprisingly, he was pleasant and nice about it. Not to mention, she noticed how cute he was.

Well, she did come to the gym to work out and run into single guys, right?

"Are you asking me out?" she asked, rather boldly.

"Depends if you're going to say yes or not," he responded.

Sakura smiled. "Hm, maybe if you can out-lift Naruto, I might consider it."

"How about I just race you around the track?" Sasuke remarked dryly.

"Scared to lose to Naruto?" Sakura teased.

"No, I'm sure I'll either tie or beat him. But I usually don't like being in the weight room. I like just running around the park usually. Gyms are kind of annoying."

"Then why are you here?" she asked.

"I saw this cute girl come in to this gym so I decided to try out the gym for just today," he replied.

Sakura felt her face drop as she realized that he probably had an interest in some other girl. When Sasuke noticed her glum expression, he couldn't help but laugh.

"She has pink hair by the way," he added.

Sakura's face immediately brighten up. "Funny! So do I!"

She realized that the two of them had been standing outside the locker rooms for quite awhile. Naruto was probably wondering where they were. Yet, she didn't really feel like working out with Naruto anymore.

"You know, I hate going to the gym as well," she started. "I usually jog around my neighborhood to my iPod," she admitted.

Sasuke smiled. "I have an idea."

"What?"

"Let's run away from here and do our workout in the park."

"And leave Naruto?" Sakura questioned.

Sasuke shrugged. "Honestly, I think he wouldn't even realize we were gone," he said as he pointed over to Naruto's direction as Naruto was talking to some pretty girl with long, purple hair and white, pristine eyes.

Sakura laughed when she saw Hinata. "They known each other since kindergarten," she murmured. "Okay, let's blow this hellhole!"

As she walked towards the exit, she turned back to look at Sasuke. "But this time, your car is following me."