Sunset

A/N: Hey, just another of my prompt wars with SkyLitNight (Lait.) As many of you might not know, I'm being quarantined. In my room. For a week. I just got 'released' today, and since I'm very bored, I just decided 'Hey! Let's do another prompt thing with Sky!' and here we are. The prompts will be underlined. Vote via reviews or something, we haven't really decided cuz Sky was too busy doing homework.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Las Vegas.

Sunset

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night, and you just simply go back to sleep? Then, when you wake up again, you take one look at the clock, and you realize that…

You're late.

It might not be a problem if you were…let's say copy nin Hatake Kakashi, but you're not. So there's no reason to be late. You quickly change, before grabbing a banana to eat on the way, and, while running to meet your team, wonder if you locked the door, or if your keys are in your pockets. Living by yourself is hard, especially if your family thinks that you shouldn't be a kunoichi, and abandons you because you are one.

You run to the meeting point for your team and you stare in horror as everyone else is already there. Even Kakashi, who was probably there to mock you, was there. And everyone knows that Kakashi is always late. They see you…and everything erupts into a chaotic mess.

"Sakura-chan! You're finally here! Why are you late?"

"Because, dickless, Ugly here spent too much time trying to make herself less ugly."

"HEY! DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

Which is why you find yourself buying everyone Ramen, Naruto happily slurping his Pork Ramen down. This will probably take a toll on your 'allowance' of some sorts, seeing as how your parents abandoned you, leaving you with only a little money. The only reason you have money is because you work sometimes, leaving you with enough money to live. You feel like punching Sai for being a douche, and feel like convincing Naruto to eat less, because you barely have enough money to pay the rent, but you don't, because you don't want, and you don't need, people to see things through your perspective, because you're content and that's all that matters.

When Naruto's finally done with his Ramen, you sadly part with your well earned money and give it to the guy making Ramen. Your boss just gave you your pay, and you really need more money. Oh well, that's what gambling with Tsunade is for. By the time you and Naruto say goodbye, the sky has become a mess of red, orange and blues. Naruto has gone off somewhere down the other road, but Sai still stays. You don't really know much about Sai, and you find it weird that he can just drop everything, take out his sketchbook and sit at the roadside, drawing the sunset, Sparrows flying about.

You don't understand Sai. He's a puzzle with no name, one of many puppets Danzo uses to do his dirty work. He's rude, and you just feel like punching him when he talks to you, but you always feel bad afterwards. So you just sit next to him and watch him draw, watch him make a beautiful sunset appear on a measly piece of paper.

Then he calls you a pineapple, and the spell is broken. Now you feel like punching him all the way to some faraway place called Vegas where all the Casinos are probably rigged. But you don't. You tolerate it and call him some choice words in return.

There are many times when you wish the old Team 7 was back, where Sasuke would be there, not Sai, and Kakashi would be his late self, without Yamato or anyone accompanying him there. You wish Sasuke was back, not only because you miss him, but also because you just can't stand watching Naruto beat himself up about him. You know how, after every failed attempt to bring him back, he goes and trains until every bone in his body aches and his hands are bleeding from the sheer amount of times he's punched that helpless tree. That's why you want to go back to the time when Team 7, the original Team 7, was happy.

You know this will never happen. Even if the original Team 7 is formed, the wounds are just too deep to really heal. The scar left behind too large to really be forgotten. They could try, but it'll all fall apart anyway. You wonder why you haven't completely left this team. You could've. You could've left and become Tsunade's full-time apprentice. But you're not. You don't know why you've stayed, even if you could've left anytime. You look at Sai, sitting next to you drawing the Sunset that's starting to slowly fade away. You look at the direction Naruto ran off to, where he's still training. And you know why. You love Team 7 too much. Not just the old Team 7, but this new, broken Team 7 as well. The bonds there are too deep to be severed. A day without them and you would be running back to them.

You stare into the fading Sun and smile.

Next to you, Sai, in his broken and somewhat twisted way, smiles too.

End

A/N: If you didn't know, the prompts were: Sunset, Pork, Banana, Puzzle, Key, Pineapple, Sparrow, Perspective, Vegas and Boss. This actually turned out quite…not cracky. If you read the first paragraph again, you realize that it was actually supposed to be crack and humor. But it just changed, I guess. I sneaked in a little SaiSaku there, and now I have to rate this T because of Sai. xD Oh dear. There goes my idea of writing a completely clean fic. At first this was supposed to be Iruka or Kakashi. Then I changed it into Shizune. Then I finally decided on Sakura. 0.o Weird. But anyway, review, tell me how it was, and watch out for SkyLitNight's story. We have the same prompts, but she hasn't finished writing hers yet. She had to do homework and last time I talked to her on MSN, she was going off to Church.

Review people!

Charlatan Quintessence