Sakura Scowling
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
A/N: I was sitting in zoology one day thinking about how much I hate period-time fics, and then I thought I should write one.
That's not strange. This is.
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She's indignant.
Well, duh. She's suffering an indignity. This is humiliation. Forget Ino pulling her pants down for the class to see, this feels worse.
Nature's a bitch. She's a mean, petty old woman who derives sick pleasure form the tears of young girls reduced to wearing icky things that don't belong in their underwear.
To add insult to injury, Sakura has to suffer her bleeding and Naruto on top.
"Sakura-chan," he whines in her ear, "Why do you look like that? Are you sad?"
Naruto never believed in cooties. She just remembered. Shortly before she declared her love for Sasuke, the boys and girls used to segregate the playground. Boy side, girl side. See that swing set? Everything on this side of it belongs to us. On the other side? Ew, don't go there. That's where they are. Ewwww, they're poking slugs again!
Boys are so gross, huh Sakura-chan?
She feels a little bit of herself bleed out, and fights back the urge to cry, puke and beat Naruto's head to a pulp.
He never stayed on the boy side. Well, they never let him stay, did the? Kiba with his big mouth would yell at him to go until the lost little kit wandered over to the girls' side. There they'd ignore him so fiercely…he'd blink and watch with hungry eyes, desperate for company.
"Sakura-chan…"
"Leave me alone!" she snaps.
That's when he started getting into trouble, when none of the kids would look at him. Do something stupid, and the teacher scolds your ears raw. Everyone snickers at you, listening. Do something stupider and they actually let you stand in front of the whole class for a whole hour! No one listens to the lesson. They all watch you. Break a rule and you get a private audience with Iruka-sensei, sometimes even the Hokage himself! People chase you, people stare at you, they see you and they won't look away. They throw shoes that don't miss the mark because they know exactly where you are.
Wow.
Since when does she have this sudden perspective into Naruto's mind? Is it the blood?
They'd told her in school what it meant and what she needed to do even before her mother talked to her about using pads instead of tampons, the first few times; how to tell if you were gonna stain. How to have a friend watching your back on the worst days. (How it was not okay to cut class for cramps, and how eating bananas helped the pain.)
Sakura was totally ready to have her first ever period.
But now it's actually here, and she realizes no one could have ever fully explained how horrid it felt to be confused and cramped. The last few days she'd been very grouchy and sad for reasons she couldn't articulate. She'd yelled at everyone who'd tried to be nice and when she woke up this morning wet she'd nearly died of shame.
Naruto grabs her arms (an unforgivable act even when dealing with a cheerful, non-bloodied Sakura) and peers way too deep in her green eyes like he can find answers etched into her irises.
Not for long.
"Naruto!!" she shrieks; a bout of violent behavior later he's nursing a black eye and a cut lip.
"I'm worried about you! You're so quiet today! Did the bastard say something? Lemme kick his ass!"
"You leave Sasuke-kun alone," she tells him hotly. A curling of resentment and uncherished love inks into his eyes, and she's convinced she's going mad.
"I'm gonna kick his ass," Naruto rebelliously mutters. It's a bad move. She'll punch his face in for that. He keeps his eyes pointed at the ground and waits. No angry fist collides with his nose, so he risks a glance upwards and quakes in his sad ninja boots with fear.
She's crying.
"Sakura-chan!"
God, is that all he's capable of saying?
"Sakura-chan!"
No, seriously.
"I'm sorry, I won't do anything to him!"
Oh, please. Like that's what she gives a damn about. Like you could harm the hair on his head. (Like he would notice that you're trying to harm him.)
"Please," he says, an edge of desperation in his voice driving him to touch her arm again "Don't cry."
"I'm not crying!"
Because, you know, that's not what they call it when tears are gushing down your face like a scale model of Victoria Falls.
"Alright," he says, "Can you, um, stop the water in your eyes?"
Sakura wrenches her hands out of his grip and rubs feverishly at her face, a fearsome scowl twisting her lips.
"Sakura-chan?"
"What?"
"You look…" he catches himself before he can say scary, "…like you could use a nap."
"I don't want a nap." She turns away from him, wanting to walk without the blond terror. But they're walking in the same direction, to the corner where the dango man plies his trade and where Team Seven regularly meets. Even Naruto isn't enough to make Sakura want to miss a chance to chew her sensei's ear over his dumbass excuses.
"Negligence of duty," she tells herself, and Naruto wonders.
"What's that mean?"
"Your parents are dead and you should die too!"
Oh, wow. What an awful thing to say. She doesn't know what came over her. She never knew hormones were this mean. Like its not enough that she's miserable—she's gotta spread it around to idiot blonds who don't know any better? And it's not like the guilt of saying those words won't haunt her. Hormones are no excuse, bleeding is no excuse. She said that.
His face goes funny, like broken milk.
"That's a really horrible thing to say," he informs her (like she didn't know already).
"Naruto…"
"Sakura-chan, if you feel bad, tell me what's bothering you."
"I don't feel that bad."
She reaches out to him anyway in apology. To her shock he evades her hand, looking at it uneasily. Whether it's because that hand never boded a painless touch or whether she's actually hurt him, she has no way of telling.
"I wanna know what's bothering you," he says stubbornly as they reach the meeting place. Kakashi isn't there, as is only to be expected. Surprisingly, neither is Sasuke.
"Where do you think Sasuke-kun is?"
"Maybe he broke something and can't come today," Naruto suggests hopefully. Sakura points her eyes skywards like she's seen her mother do when her father says something particularly dim.
"You better hope not," she mutters. Her feet start walking again, towards Sasuke's home.
"No, Sakura-chan, not his house!"
"No one's asking you to come!"
Naruto says nothing; he just follows her. A storm is brewing on his face and she vows to make sure he doesn't do something stupid at Sasuke's place. She'd be so embarrassed.
Sakura's heard from her cousins in the civilian world that twelve year olds are in fact no allowed to live alone. But Naruto's been living alone since he was seven. Before that, no one knows who'd been taking care of him. He showed up at his landlady's building one day, asking for a room. He'd paid rent by doing her chores. And Sasuke-kun too—he's been living alone ever since that happened. Something weird and big that made Sasuke's entire clan die. He lives in the huge Uchiha compound all by himself.
All by himself…
Just like Naruto.
"Why do you like him?" Naruto gripes, "He's so dumb. He doesn't even know how to talk. He thinks he's so much better than you!"
"No, he doesn't," Sakura replies calmly.
"He does too!"
"You're not in his head, Naruto, so how would you know what he thinks he is?"
"I know what you think he is," he shoots back, "You think he's perfect. Well, he's not!"
"I know that."
She feels better now, but not quite herself. Why else would she be having this conversation for so long with Naruto? Still, this is preferable by far to moping around.
"You do? Then why do you like him?"
"Nobody's perfect, Naruto," she tells him. It's what her mother tells her when she's crying about her forehead, sometimes. They're walking through the Uchiha complex now, the long-abandoned buildings watching in quiet, solemn and unwelcoming.
He broods over his for a while, before voicing a doubt.
"How do you know where he lives, Sakura-chan?"
She glances askance at him with some level of exasperation.
"Naruto, please. I've known where he lives for years. Ino and I used to follow him home."
Tight emotions squeeze through his face. "Oh. Yeah. I remember."
Sakura stops and looks at him. The feeling-better feeling sneaks away to die somewhere as memories come flitting back to her.
It was dumb, huh Sakura-chan? Do you remember giggling in bushes as the loner boy walks sedately past? How about Ino shoving you for a better glimpse of him, you remember that? At least do you remember falling into a puddle near this place, when Sasuke almost turned back to see who was stupid enough to trail him home so noisily? You remember any of that?
'Cause Naruto sure does.
"How do you remember?" she demands, ill temper hanging over her head like a guillotine. Naruto doesn't even have the grace to look abashed as he replies, "Because I used to follow you home."
How sad their lives are. Comically pathetic. She's floundering in the seas of unrequited affection, and so is he. A chain of misery.
A wrong, red sensation creeps over her heart. She needs to change. The thing between her legs has taken as much as it can. She ducks into the nearest building with Naruto at her heels.
"Sakura-chan?"
"I need to use the bathroom," she snarls at him, "Leave me alone."
No one's lived her for years, but every few days a team of chuunin (commissioned by the Hokage personally) clean up the compound. The building Sakura chose used to be a patisserie, so a polite sign points the way to the still serviceable bathroom. Naruto waits at the counter while she locks herself in and stares glumly at her reflection in the mirror.
"Is it possible," she whispers, "That there is another girl on this planet who is at the moment more miserable than you are?"
She thinks there must be, but it doesn't make her feel so much better. She does her thing and steps out to see that Naruto's found Sasuke.
"You had no right, you stupid deadbeat moron, to come here!"
"Go kill yourself, bastard, who died and made you king of the compound?"
Sasuke makes a furious move towards Naruto; as he does he catches sight of Sakura and his fury finds a fresh outlet.
"This is all your fault! Why'd you bring him here!?"
Sure he's angry, but Sakura can't help but note with hope that his
complaint is against Naruto, not her.
"Don't shout at Sakura-chan," Naruto yells, "She was worried about you!"
"I don't need her to be worried about me!"
"You should be glad she gives a damn, you bast—!"
"Naruto, shut up!" Sakura shoves him out of Sasuke's line of vision to appease the red-eyed monster. "Sorry Sasuke-kun, you weren't at the dango corner so we came to loo…" she trails off, hearing for the first time the change in her voice when she addresses Sasuke. It's a simper. A simper. No wonder he doesn't like her, with that fake sugar syrup voice.
Ew.
He turns away with a mollified huff. "If no one's at that corner when Kakashi shows up, he's going to buy some dango and leave again."
"Don't call sensei by his name!" Naruto flares up again, "Show a little respect, you bastard!"
"Coming from the moron who graffiti'd the Hokage monument? Yeah, that means nothing to me."
"That was out of respect! Who wants to be remembered as a boring rock?! My art made them more interesting!"
(You could almost hear the 'un' at the end.)
Sasuke makes this noise like he can't believe he's sharing an atmosphere with this guy, and Sakura's still a little shocked at how uncool she is to say anything.
On the way back to the rendezvous point, Naruto starts again.
"Please, tell me what's wrong, Sakura-chan, please."
"Shut up, Naruto," she says for the squillionth time. She's acutely aware of the fact that Sasuke can listen. Maybe he doesn't care, but oh my god, he's listening.
And he is listening because a second later he asks, "What's the matter with you this time?"
"Why should she tell you?" Naruto bristles. The Uchiha gives an easy shrug that rolls off his shoulders.
"If she can't perform well, the team suffers. I suffer."
A sudden spark of irritation prompts Sakura to go, "Isn't there any other reason you might be concerned for me? Maybe because, oh, I don't know…I've liked you forever!"
Sasuke rolls his eyes and keeps going; Naruto goes too. But he gives her a look of why'd-you-have-to-do-that so profoundly sad that her unprecedented anger at Sasuke turns against Naruto. Now that's an emotion she can deal with.
"You're too emotional," Sasuke calls over his shoulder, "Just like Naruto. He can't help it, he's a moron. You should be able to control yourself, though." He turns properly, hesitation evident in his eyes. Naruto watches warily, having let go of the moron comment. Sakura meets Sasuke's gaze in a mild state of stupefaction.
"I know you like me but I don't…I don't." She can see him working his tongue around the lie he's going to tell her next. "I'm sorry."
"No you're not." Naruto looks spitting mad. "You're not sorry. You're stupid! Do you know what it means to have her like—"
"This isn't about you, deadbeat," Sasuke says coolly. "The almost human feelings that were playing across his face give way to his impassive expression. He turns and walks. Naruto fumes.
Sakura's stunned.
To think that abandoning that simper got Sasuke to open up so far. She should've tried this years ago. But years ago, she didn't know. Years ago, she simpered.
Ew, again.
Today she feels worldly and wise. Maybe this is why most adults are no fun: their worldliness and wisdom comes at the price of abject misery. And even in her melancholy she feels a sort of exhausted joy, a content resignation.
A muscle cramps low in her abdomen and she contorts her face into an awful grimace.
Periods make no sense.
"Sakura-chan! Are you okay?"
A scrawny, tan hand grabs her wrist, inquisitive blue eyes burn a trail of worry across her vision. She gives in. What's the point? What's the bloody point? Naruto looks panicked as she stands there, letting him keep his grip on her. Sasuke approaches.
"Do you want to go home?" he wants to know. A frown starts to unfurl on his fair visage.
"That's what I told her!" Naruto bursts out.
"You told me I needed a nap," Sakura reminds him, pressing a hand to her stomach.
"And where do people take naps?"
She laughs, she can hardly help it. To general consternation, she throws her arms around Naruto (yeah, that Naruto) and hugs him. The corner of Sasuke's mouth twitches. The nearly empty expanse of Naruto's mind boggles. The irrational body of Sakura thrills.
"Okay," Naruto says, "Who are you and what've you done to my Sakura-chan?"
"I don't belong to you, Naruto," she lets go of him. "I'm just…I guess I just feel a little loopy today."
"Perish the thought," Sasuke smirks.
Sakura glares daggers at him, pleased at how easy it is. The reward is great too—her glare makes Sasuke's smirk elongate into a grin.
She wonders how they'd react if they knew she was having he period. Naruto's been fawning over her all day, how'd he like to know, really, what's bothering her? And Sasuke—oh, gosh, Sasuke. Would his face curl up and die? A sadistic sort of pleasure sweeps over her. She'd love to make them squirm. Plus she has to tell someone besides her mother—why not her teammates?
"The reason why I'm loopy," she enunciates, savoring her slow speed. The boys turn to her with expectant faces. "It's because I'm having my first period."
Sasuke bursts into laughter, stops immediately, bites his lip, and starts laughing again. It's nothing like the dignified chuckle Sakura thought it'd be. It's high, exciting, and infectious. Naruto's face clears as the worry he's felt since he saw her this morning drains away.
"Oh," he says in a mixture of relief and annoyance, "Is that all?"
God damn it! The one thing that might've been useful about her period, and the boys take it so easy.
Sasuke stops laughing, and that's something Sakura is very sorry for. Especially when his next words are, "It happens to all girls, you know. You're not special."
"Maybe not," she replies, stung to the quick, "But you're annoying."
There's a wild whoop of joy from Naruto, who's pointing all his fingers at Sasuke.
"Hah!" he yells triumphantly, "She thinks you're annoying!"
"Am I supposed to be insulted by that?"
"Yes."
"I'm not."
"I hate you."
"That's not news."
"Bastard!"
"Deadbeat!"
"You guys ever notice how all your arguments invariably end with that?" Sakura observes. Sasuke does that search-me-only-don't shrug and Naruto beams at her.
"Sakura-chan, I love you."
"Barf," Sasuke says calmly.
"Bastard!"
"Deadbeat."
"I was right!" Sakura smiles. She grabs Sasuke's arm, surprised but pleased that he doesn't pull away. Naruto takes her free arm, not willing to let her go to the Uchiha. Kakashi materializes with his excuse ready.
"I received a note saying you've been kidnapped and fell into a state of extreme depression. I'm so glad to see you're alright."
"Shove it, sensei," Naruto advises.
"Who's disrespectful now, deadbeat?"
Sakura hugs their arms to her, scowling no more.
Do you fee better, Sakura-chan? (I bet you do.)
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=D