Summary: ONESHOT. POST WAR. When Sakura drops the '-kun' suffix from his name and starts giving him the cold shoulder, Uchiha Sasuke demands to know why. [SasuxSaku]

Author's Note: I've not written a SasuSaku fic in a while (due to my decreasing belief in their relationship, sad to say), but here's one with Sasuke returning to Konoha and Sakura acting weird. Got the idea from one of my excursions through the Haruno Sakura tag on tumblr. Hope you like it.

Read and review..


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The Apology

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Uchiha Sasuke never cared for Haruno Sakura – not for the way she stared at him all starry eyed as if he was her sun and moon, not for the way she squealed all excited-like whenever he pulled a kunai out of his hip pouch and flip it expertly around in his fingers, not for the way she'd sit by him for hours on end when he was recovering in the hospital, and certainly not for the way she burst into tears and confessed her undying love for him when he first defected from Konoha at 12 years old.

Now 17 and the mark of a war fresh on his shoulders, Uchiha Sasuke was still a hundred percent sure that he by no means gave a damn about Haruno Sakura.

But when said annoying female teammate started averting her eyes from him every time he'd (reluctantly) accept Naruto's offer for a wholesome Team 7 reunion dinner and snap her mouth shut from a conversation she'd been previously holding with one of the other members on the team the moment he stepped into the room, Sasuke realized he felt a tad irritated.

This feeling of irritation was, however, quickly replaced by a more serious emotion the moment said Uchiha realized his (annoying) female teammate suddenly began avoiding him; her useless adoration of the '-kun' suffix she'd normally attach to his name dropping all together in whatever chance meeting they'd have in the months that came.

In short, Sasuke was pissed. At both Sakura (for suddenly acting like he didn't mean anything to her all weird with him), as well as at himself (for sparing any form of emotion for how she did or did not react to him at all).

And today, six months into his return to Konoha and the life of a regular non-avenging ninja, Sasuke was about to demand an explanation from her.

"Sakura," Sasuke stated flatly once he arrived at her office in Konoha Medical Centre some time at noon. "We need to talk."

As subtle as she was being, Sasuke's sharp eyes were quick to note how Sakura's muscles tensed as she paused in whatever medical report she was handling. No longer dressed in the green flak jacket he was used to seeing her in when in the middle of war, Sasuke also took note of the fact that a 17 year old Haruno Sakura was a rather attractive one.

Hair no longer parted in the middle but wore up in a messy bun at the top of her head, face the same heart-shaped one she had always had when she was a kid, lips small and dainty despite being currently pursed into a straight line, bottle green eyes cold with the undertone of experience and wisdom, bangs croppy but short enough not to completely disguise the stone-coloured yin seal she had plastered on her forehead—Sakura was definitely the sight for sore eyes.

…Even when she was looking at him like that.

"What?" said Sasuke, ever the sensitive one, as Sakura rose from her seat behind a very busy desk and approached the ex-avenger, arms crossed.

"I should be asking you the same question," she started, eyes hard. "What do you want from me?"

Shoving aside the inappropriately dirty thoughts that suddenly popped into his head following Sakura's question and the way she was dressed in a white nurse's outfit and black leather boots, Sasuke raised his demand, "You have been acting strangely around me all year. I need to know why so I can command you drop it and let things return to normal."

Sakura's green eyes lit up in fury at her teammate's (or should she consider him an ex-teammate? What with his defect from Konoha and his later return, the mechanics of their relationship with one another was still a little bit on the fuzzy side) callous remark. "You have some nerve," she hissed, hand crumpled up into a fist and one index finger poking at Sasuke's chest. "To show up here and command from me anything. You may have Naruto fooled, but you have to do a hell of a lot better than that to get Kakashi-sensei and I on your side."

Sasuke's lips parted, but before he could get a word in edgewise, Sakura was at it again. "You left us for over three years, threatened to kill us both, almost KILLED me, and now all of a sudden you're back here acting like none of it ever happened?" she practically yelled, right hand no longer poking him but now physically shoving him up against the wall. "Well, I'd be damned if I ever let things drop and return to normal. They can never return to normal, Sasuke. The only reason I haven't already killed you in your sleep is because you helped save the village in the end and Naruto trusts you for it. But I know better – you only jumped in at the last second for your own selfish reasons; because somewhere in your twisted little head, saving the village and becoming Hokage will help you 'avenge' things."

Oh.

So that was it – she was pissed that he tried to kill her back at the Land of the Snow.

Okay, well, if that was it, then there was nothing a little apology couldn't fix.

That would have, of course, been the case had Sasuke not grown up an unruly Uchiha with no sentiment for apologizing.

"Look," said Sasuke instead, when he realized his tone of command was not helping the waves of furious energy she was radiating. "Things were different back then. We were 15. Let it go."

Sakura's jaw dropped, eyes bugging. "Let. It. GO?!" she yelled out the last word.

Wait. Was he saying something wrong?

BOOM.

The next thing he knew, Sasuke found himself eight rooms down the hallway from Sakura's office; having crashed through every single wall he passed, only to land in a pile of hard, pointy rubble right in front of a crowd of screaming, frantic nurses.

"If I ever find out anyone DARES tend to him, be prepared to face the EXACT same fate in the near future!" roared Sakura from the gaping hole in the middle of her office, startling her all ready frightened staff into scrambling as far away from the beat-up Uchiha as possible.

Dazed, sore and spine most definitely broken, Sasuke realized, in hindsight, he should have just apologized.


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Author's Note: Believe it or not, when this idea first popped into my head, I was aiming for a more serious, darker theme in mind. I still don't know how I got from serious to light comedy, though. I'm so sorry for that. Perhaps I'll write a more serious multi-fic SasuSaku around the same lines in the future.

Don't forget to drop your reviews.

Oh, and PS: To all you Leashed readers out there, I've completed the 10th Chapter and am currently waiting for my BETA readers to get back to me; and to my Not So Typical GenderBending readers, umm, I have the whole idea for the upcoming chapters all plotted out in my head, I just haven't gotten into writing it all down. Eheh. Sorry.