note: Everyone should have heard about T-Swift's lyrical polaroids in her albums, right? Well, 13 polaroids, 13 prompts, 13 random January days of fluffy writing madness.

prompt one.
So hey, let's be friends! I'm dying to see how this one ends.

Sakura Haruno, nineteen turning twenty in less than two months, communications major, failed macaron-maker, hipster in every way ("You make me want to make love to a pair of Oxfords you forehead-bish!"), hella expectant, and a little bit nervous even though she was a second year student at Konoha Polytechnic University majoring in Communications. It's probably because she was currently an exchange student in a country she's never been before.

Yeah. It's probably that.

"Travel writer, mostly," was her answer to every future-career question thrown her way. It was an answer no different to the one she just gave to Mr. Sexy in a Henley. But he knew that already so whatever.

"Why Oto then?" It was almost as if he wasn't proud of the University he's from with the way he so casually said it. Maybe he really wasn't. With his disinterested eyes and all.

"I saw a brochure at one of our Study Abroad sessions back at Konoha." She brought her fingers together and lifted it to her mouth, giving it a swift kiss. "I saw that one of your meal plans served New York Deli Platter on Thursdays and who am I to deny my Thursday the fabulous American treat?"

He let out a small laugh. She didn't notice, too cooped up with the article she was reading about hypnagogic pop and its nuances, not that she looked to be the one to be listening to such a genre. He scooted closer (surprising himself) and looked over her shoulders.

"You should be proud of Otogakure for having such a detailed incoming exchange students information. I was actually planning to go Ame since their sudden rise in industrialization meant for more opportunities for internships and networking contacts, not to mention that it has the architecture to boast too. I mean seriously, have you seen those huge meta-skyscrapers? They make Godzilla look like a freakin' hobbit in comparison!"

Sasuke leaned back not really needing to ask her why she was so interested with hypnagogic pop anymore. Her eyes scanned that page oh too quickly. He thought it's because he accidentally bumped her knee with his brogues when she specifically told him how, no matter how absorbed she is with something, she'd only too easily get distracted. He smirked for the nth time that day and he thought how for an Uchiha, this has got to be a record.

On Wednesday, he saw her walking past the film classics section with her reading glasses on. She had a book tucked under her arm and she strode with such purpose, Sasuke found himself lightly jogging just to keep up with her.

"Oy, what are you doing?" He jerked her around with a twist of her elbow and she almost flipped him on his back. She did tell him that she was learning Taijutsu since she has to "protect myself in any given situation since I'm to become a travel writer, right?" She emphasized the travel bit to him ever since their first conversation a month before during orientation. He frowned every time she placated him with the word.

"I'm doing research on the Lubitsch Touch," she stated as if it's the most obvious thing in the world. He lifted his head a fraction before gently slipping her glasses off her face. He motioned her to follow him and she did, trying with all her might to pry his fingers off her glasses as gently as she could.

He didn't give her a chance.

/

Sakura rang his phone when he was still in class. His lecturer droned on about the politics game in the networked system; infrastructural systems placed in monopoly are no doubt hefted by those richer than Richie Rich and how eager these systems are banked on by what he terms as the "watchers."

"They watch out for those with potential and in no less than twenty-four hours, a contract and offer will be established. It's a creative game no more, young ones. It's about what pulls the viewers in and therefore what makes the money flow."

Sasuke had been very interested given that one of his ambitions is to rid the social world of its stupidity with their abuse of online vlogging and video-making, but he was more interested as to why Sakura didn't take this class when the other day she couldn't stop talking about those "Leonardo DiCaprio plastic imitations that are just ugh." He only realised that she had been talking about the actor's role as that Wall Street guy in that movie they watched together before her aggressive ponytail hit him. Apparently, she was still angry that he didn't win the Oscar.

He saw her on the stands opposite the baseball field. It was mid-November.

"Hey, Sasuke." She handed him a juice pouch and he stretched himself comfortably on the stand below hers. She looked good today. Not that she didn't look good everyday. But he be damned to say otherwise. She was wearing a red sweatshirt over her white-collar short sleeves and she was fiddling with her owl necklace, not looking at him.

He took a sip. "What's up?"

She shrugged nonchalantly, as if her urgent call for him to meet her hadn't been urgent enough

"I wore my combat boots today, Sasuke." She looked at him then and with the sun settled just behind her profile Sasuke had to squint back. "Do you know what this means?"

He shook his head.

"It means I'm moving on to rough terrain. The level up in a game, you know. Not necessarily the big boss finale but a big boss nonetheless." She took out her yellow paper pad and started to draw. She pointed to the big circle first.

"This is the world, Sasuke." He tried not to laugh at the horrid drawing of what she believed is the world (he knows the power of those fists) but he nodded anyway. "And this is me." She pointed to a little stick figure of what represented her, which was enclosed around a very rough drawing of Oto. Sasuke pointed at her other drawing. Konoha. Her hometown.

"And yes, that is where I'm from," Sakura said, reading his thoughts. "The land of my fathers and my father's father's great-grandfathers."

"My family's originally from there too, you know." At this, Sakura was surprised.

"You didn't tell me that!" Sasuke allowed himself to laugh then.

"You never really asked." This time, she glared.

"It's kind of common courtesy to share something like that to me, Sasuke-kun." He met her eyes and held them steady with his. He didn't know how he did it exactly but he was consumed by the fire in those greens. The small black flecks held semblance to his own dark ones as if by simply staring at her eyes, he was giving a part of him to her. In what seemed like an eternity for him, she finally looked away.

She let out a big sigh. "The world is just so, so big, Sasuke."

"No more '-kun'?"

She gave him a half-smile. Almost repentant.

"So many places to see, foods to eat, people to, you know, meet." Sakura fiddled with her necklace again before flopping herself down next to him and looking him in the eye.

"I'm leaving in a month," she sighed. "You know this and I definitely know this and I'm glad to see that this is how everything ends."

Sasuke knew what she meant by her words as he let the breeze play with their hair, and their clothes, and their souls entwined by fate or destiny; something cliché; or by an airplane and a need to quench the American food want. She had been so eager to make friends and explore and make memories, not realising how day by day, she slowly stamped herself to every part of him. Her soul, her ambitious yet carefree way of life. Sasuke wanted to be part of it all, to be part of her. But looking at the way her eyes closed as the breeze caressed her cheeks, her temple, her lips, every part of her that he wanted for himself, he knew that he just couldn't.

Maybe not now. Maybe not ever. But maybe. Just maybe...

"I'll miss your wont for something more, chicken-butt," she remarked, elbowing him softly. "It reminds me a lot of me."

He smelt dandelions and felt her for the last time, leaning her head on his shoulder and closing her eyes, taking note of his mint leaves smell that she will forever treasure, she promised.

"Thanks for being my friend, Sasuke-kun."

Thank you so much.