I know...I did it again! I pulled the disappearing act, but it's different this time. This is actually all the way back from labor day. I thought it was horrible, but then I re-read it and realized it wasn't all that bad and decided to take the plunge. I've just been so...STUCK, I didn't know what to write! All that could come to me were one-shots...really random ones...

With this one I experimented with time progression. I even noticed it's a little weird.

DISCLAIMER: Does Misashi Kishimoto write cheesy romance fanfiction? The answer is along the same pretext of questioning my ownership...No.

It started with the bus. You know, that city bus that follows a schedule and where people actually pee on the seats, not that Sakura ever sat on them, she preferred standing. But the sanitation conditions of those grimy seats isn't what she felt like agonizing over.

Her turmoil was over him. His stupid piercings and vibrant orange hair made Sakura want to mull over her past choices over even acknowledging his existence. But kicking herself over this wouldn't keep her from thinking over and over about it, and it all started with the late bus.

.O.O.O.

Sakura stared dull eyed as her one transportation unit for the center of all her suffering sped by with long blaring horn signaling to move or be squashed. Hoping out of the way of the speeding bullet, she finally registered missing the bus was not good. Missing the bus meant being late to school. Being late to school equaled phone to mother, which meant furious raging temperamental possible grounding mother.

This was a chance Sakura did not want to take with her mother so set against her being a doctor. One excuse for neglecting her studies and it's straight down the tubes to running the family restaurant.

"Noooooooooooooo!" Sakura screamed after the gas guzzler. It honked once in reply to her agony.

"Goddamned!" She cursed loudly and felt like punching the poster of one of many brightly smiling retailers that hung on the inside of the wall of the bus stop booth. Many of the other patient and calm waiting recipients backed away and cleared a seat for her on the bench. Sakura mumbled an angry "thank you," and plopped down next to the only guy who hadn't budged after her tirade.

They all sat in awkward silence as a group. Sakura assumed they were all skittish because of her outburst, but didn't feel a bit guilty. She's grumpy in the morning, and hated taking the late bus.

"There's always another bus."

Sakura's head shot up from its resting place against her chest. The man to her left in an expensive suit shook out his newspaper and didn't look to be the culprit. Then she looked to her right, the only brave soul who had dared to sit just a few inches from Sakura with his Mp3 player blasting so loudly, she could almost decipher the lyrics.

His hands were tucked comfortably in his pockets and the hoodie of his black jacket covered nearly every inch of his face. But just by the orange hair the stuck like a porcupine from his head and two small triangular piercings just below the edges of his bottom lip, Sakura could tell he was bad news. And for the next two weeks, she continued school and took the bus without seeing a trace of him and his no doubt mutilated ear drums.

.O.O.O.

Sakura shifted her feet glumly toward the bus stop bench, not even bothering to screech profane language at the departing bus. She was late, again. This time, though, it wasn't all her fault. Sakura sighed as an initial reaction remembering the brutal fight she'd had with her mother this morning.

"It's useless to think you could ever become a doctor, Sakura!Definitely for a failure like you!"

Sakura leaned her head back against the peeling bench and rubbed her temple while folding her legs. A sigh parted between her lips for the second time.

"Mad one day, sad the next. That's one interesting emotional sequence."

Her head whipped up in response. That was such an oddly familiar voice. The same deep brooding one that had escaped an exact owner pinpoint the last time it had muttered a smug comment. But you can't escape prying eyes twice, and it didn't seem like he had planned to. He met her gaze head on, full eye contact.

His eyes were an even more commanding orange than his hair. She attempted to trace every single piercing with her own islander green eyes, but felt dizzy after seeing the six that trailed each side of his nose and each set of seven that ran along his ears. Sakura couldn't help but think the guy had a membership wherever he was getting it done.

"I have my reasons," she muttered with a pout. Can't just let a random stranger insult her and walk away unscathed.

"Ah," he retorted quickly, "then you also have your reasons for staring at my face so long."

Sakura almost whiplashed her neck from turning away quickly from the man. What if he had figured out she was actually goggling at his interesting decor of metal?

.O.O.O.

Apparently snide remarking people have quick brains, because the next day Sakura was late again from another verbal lashing, he decided to speak first of their last encounter the moment she plopped down next to him.

"It's a family tradition," he said under his regular black sported hoodie.

Sakura didn't need a speck of clarification for the 'it', not that he would offer some even if she asked politely. Now her problem was how to respond. If she took too long he'd write her off as nonexistent and completely ignore her as he probably had before in her late bus tantrums; not that she'd seen him once before.

"That's cool," she finally said, and hated how forced and squeaky it came out.

Despite her squeakiness, he shrugged off his headgear and smiled for first time since he'd commented logically to her quick temper. "Yeah, I guess it is."

.O.O.O.

Their short, barely conversations, became almost a weekly routine on the average two days she was late every week. It was like they had formed an odd late bus friendship. Not that she knew his name yet. He just found the need to keep his hidden even though he knew hers and found it amusing that it had such a similarity to her hair.

"So you're named after a pink flowered tree...interesting."

The lower edge of his lip twitched, so Sakura could tell he wanted to laugh.

"Yeah, now if only I knew your name."

Instantly, Sakura knew she had said the wrong thing. The smile in his bright eyes dimmed and he shut himself in for the rest of the wait for the late bus. They spoke of nothing for the next week, and during the heavy silence of that time, Sakura definitely knew she had said the worst thing.

.O.O.O.

"I just want to be a doctor," Sakura bluntly decided to say on an early foggy Monday morning.

Maybe it was the slight turn of his head that showed the first hint of acknowledgment after so long. Or the memory of her mother's furious piercing disappointed look when Sakura had showed her acceptance letter for the world renowned med school that made her eyes blur and mist over with tears.

Was it so wrong to dream outside of greasy tables and checkered aprons?

"Maybe it's useless to dream after all."

Sakura curled in a pathetic ball with her head buried into her arms and her knees folded inside herself. Maybe she should just skip college and run the restaurant with a smile like her mother expected from the instant she was born. That wouldn't be so bad, right?

Tears soaked into her already damp shirt sleeve and Sakura tried to push them back. No use crying over what was bound to happen.

Suddenly without warning she felt a hand smooth down her hair gently.

"It's never useless unless you stop trying," he whispered and tucked her hair around her ears.

Sakura looked up at him and failed to hold back the larger tears that had been bottled in over the years of her mother's disappointments. His stern gaze faltered and he sighed once before patting his left shoulder. She instantly clung to him and let loose quiets sobs.

For her mother. Her failures in life. The one guy who punched her in the fourth grade, anything at all. She just released her raging emotions in tears.

Eventually Sakura calmed down and realized who she was exactly she was getting snot and salty tears on. She snapped away from him to the far end of the bench and blushed deeply.

"Sorry," she apologized quietly. That was just as strange to her as it must have been to him. Sakura wasn't use to outwardly bursting like that, especially never to a guy she barely knew.

"For what?" he asked as he slipped on his Mp3 and tugged down his hoodie.

Sakura didn't bother answering.

Even as the late bus pulled in and she boarded, she knew that he was watching her the whole time and couldn't help but crack a smile when he shot a peace sign at her as the bus drove away.

.O.O.O.

The first chord that struck Sakura was just how odd it was seeing her bus stop friend in a regular black T-shirt. To Sakura's jumping nerves, he took to it to trail his gaze from her sluggish walk from the sidewalk to the bench in a slitted eye fashion. To put in simply, he didn't look happy.

With Sakura sitting down he suddenly said, "My mom thought my sweatshirt was a mess, so she washed it. Now it's wet, and I can't wear it."

Embarrassment was crashed over with shock in this circumstance. What had that been? 18, 19, 20 words?

Guilt suddenly swapped with astonishment, this was her fault. She was the one who had decided a mental break down was necessary last Monday. It was also in the middle of the winter and snow blanketed thickly across the ground in high mounds. Now that Sakura really looked at him, he did look cold with goose bumps popping up along his arms with every gust of cool, dry air that breezed in now and again.

"Aren't you cold?" Sakura finally asked after sucking up her pride.

"No, not really."

His Mp3 player seemed to blare even louder amidst the silence of the winter season. And in this silence, Sakura could instantly tell he was lying, even though he faked it well with his comfortable stance in the below zero temperature.

"You're lying," she said snidely and crossed her arms across her chest awkwardly over her own warm, snug leather coat.

He stayed mute and closed his eyes like this conversation wasn't worth his time.

"You know what word would describe you?" Sakura grunted out as she tugged off her heavy duty winter jacket.

The lower corner of his lip twitched once. "Enlighten me."

She succeeded at removing the final sleeve and threw her coat, gloves and all, at him.

"Impossible."

Sakura laughed at his absolute look of bewilderment when seeing every zipper and attachment for the jacket. "Well, you know what would sum you up, Sakura Haruno?"

He threw the jacket back at her with a rare smile breaking across his face.

"Teenage girl."

.O.O.O.

Summer crawled along eventually, and the dark clouds of graduation and acceptance letters seemed to disperse as quickly as it had formed at the beginning of senior year. After years of back and forth strikes against each other, Sakura's mother had at last relented and agreed for her to attend med school in the Fall.

But now a new looming darkness plagued Sakura's mind all the more heavily. With High School over and College just around the corner, daily bus rides were no longer a part of the agenda. Even as Sakura had gone back every day just for a quick peek, there was no him.

He had plainly vanished. No letters, no goodbye's, no parting gifts.

'You mean parting kiss?...'

Sakura took in a breath at her own thoughts. There was no way she could be...was there?

.O.O.O.

Just as Summer came, Summer went. And with a vacation gone, work hops on up. Even with her excitement over her mother's sudden understanding over her interest in medicine, Sakura couldn't find the heart to celebrate. With him gone, it just seemed...

'...like a lie...'

Sakura trotted to the bus stop on her first day late again, but she still didn't care.

With school starting, the bus stop was oddly deserted. Only an old man and a lone elementary kid stood waiting for the late bus. Sakura shrugged it off and took her regular seat. Then she looked down.

An Mp3 player was leaned casually against the front of the bench. Not as if someone had dropped it or left it by accident, but like it was placed just that way on purpose.

It had to be his, there was no other explanation.

Sakura looked to the facts. It couldn't be his, he hadn't showed his face in months. Sakura had checked every day.

She looked to the kid. He only calmly popped his gum every three seconds, and Sakura didn't bother to look to the old business man. Why would a man like that bother to buy one?

'It's his...'

.O.O.O.

And this is exactly what led to the events of her modern day turmoil. The mysterious finding of hisMp3 player. So, Sakura did the only thing she could do, she clicked the on button and listened.

"I know you're probably confused, and hate my guts..."

Sakura rubbed her hands together to keep from jumping up and screeching at the top of lungs as the cause of her recent tears spoke rhythmically into her ears. But to Sakura's horror, its static played for over thirty seconds after that, and she almost threw the machine to the ground in rage. The next statement stopped her dead cold.

"...but I had my reasons..."

The Mp3 player almost died from her thumb hitting the replay button over a hundred times. This was when the late bus decided to roll in and Sakura boarded in such a daze that she didn't notice herself slid in a seat next to some random guy. If he remembered her first words to him, then that had to mean something.

Then the stench hit her. Bad. Registry that she was actually sitting in a bus seat that was regularly peed on finally dawned through the mist that had clouded her thoughts.

"Oh, dear god! I just sat in dry urine!"

Driver and passengers alike laughed in Sakura's expense. The only person who hadn't was seated next to Sakura who wore a strikingly familiar black hooded sweat shirt.

Sakura eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth as he tugged his hoodie away from his face.

"There's always another seat."

.O.O.O.