Dear cherry blossom a.k.a Sweet Serenity

Update: For those who already read this chap, scroll to bottom for special message.

A/N:This is rated for mild lemons, language, and some violence. If you're going to leave a critical review, please let me know ways that I can improve the story. This was inspired by actual events. (Yes… ACTUAL events.) The names were changed to protect me from getting my butt kicked.

Summery: Angst, drama, ramen, blah, blah, blah. Sasuke is the village's greatest ninja and he deserves to be treated as such. Sasuke and Ino's marriage is falling apart and now Sasuke's eye is starting to wander. Sakura is a successful advice columnist who's going to use her expertise to wreck a little havoc for them. Naruto still loves Sakura and has formulated a plan to win her over. It's a strange situation, but everything will turn out ok…right?

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Chapter 1: Uchiha marital problems

"What the hell is taking you so long? When are you coming to bed?" Sasuke asked his wife in a loud voice so she could hear him through the bathroom door.

"Quit rushing me!" she answered back in an even louder voice as she continued what she was doing. Sasuke had the need for a little sexual satisfaction but this woman had picked the wrong time (like always) to be doing all of her nightly rituals. Sasuke didn't like wasting his energy and losing control when it came to matters as trivial as this, but his wife was royally pissing him off at the moment.

"Will you get out of there?" This time Sasuke was banging on the door with one hand and violently shaking the knob with the other. "I'll break this damn door down if I have to!" Fed up with the noise, his wife slightly opened the door allowing Sasuke to peer through the crack. He couldn't see very much so he wedged his hands into the crack and tried to pry the door open. He opened the door a little wider only to have a huge bottle of lotion chucked hard at his head. He growled in pain just before the door slammed shut again once the pitcher was certain that she hit her target.

"I said quit rushing me!" The angry voice from inside of the bathroom shouted. The clicking noise of the lock coming from the other side of the bathroom door confirmed that Sasuke had no other option but to wait. Too proud to rub the dull ache on his forehead even though there was no one else in the room, Sasuke walked over to the bed and sat down. Deep inside he knew that his waiting would be pointless because she always spent at least two hours getting ready for bed every night.

Sasuke never understood why females took just as long to get ready for bed as they did getting ready in the morning. Why couldn't women be more like men when it came to stuff like this? When he used live in an apartment with two other males and was forced to share one bathroom, all it took was twenty minutes for all of them to be in and out even though they went in 1 by 1. (Except for a few times when one of them would go in with one of those adult novels that Kakashi was always reading and would stay in the bathroom for at least an hour.) But now he was living with a woman…a woman who took two hours every night doing only the gods know what to herself.

He drummed his fingers on the nearby nightstand and tried, but to no avail, to get him mind off of his hard-on bulging through his sweatpants. His urges weren't planning on going away anytime soon and he was aching below his waistline. He hated the thought of being forced to satisfy himself. He had a woman for that. A highly uncooperative woman. A woman who was not giving him the kind off attention that he needed.

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Why now, Ino? Why these stupid female habits now!"

Until she could pry herself away from the magnetic force that held her in there (which was most likely her own reflection in the mirror), Sasuke had no choice but to lay his head back and stare at the ceiling. After the excitement of that activity wore off, he started shifting his eyes around the room. That was when he spotted a picture frame with his wedding photo sitting on the nightstand next to the bed. He picked it up and studied it carefully while thinking about his wife.

She is extremely beautiful. Her long blonde hair, blue eyes, and slender figure almost drove him crazy whenever he looked at her. She also has the amazing ability to juggle being one of the top female ninjas in the village, working tirelessly at her family's flower shop, and taking care of the house everyday. Yep, she would seem almost perfect except for one problem…she' s a BITCH. For the past year and a half that they have been married, she has been a self-centered, arrogant, cold-hearted bitch.

Although he had no problem admitting that he loved her, he didn't know how much more of her he could take. It seemed that he could barely even breathe without her finding a good reason to scream at him. As if his life wasn't hard enough, he now had to put up with the fact that they were constantly arguing, they hardly ever spent time together, she always chewed him out whenever other women so much as looked at him, and she was always competing with him on the training grounds and during missions. Hardly a day went by that he did not ask himself how he ever got himself into this mess…this situation that continuously challenged his masculinity.

Ino stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror in frustration. "Why does he have to act like this? Must we go through this every night?" She calmed herself down and stepped back in order to get a look at herself. "Damn I'm gorgeous." She said with a smirk as she ran a brush through her waist length hair. She knew that she shouldn't be so stuck on her looks, but she couldn't help it. Why did she have to be so damn irresistible? There was no doubt in her mind that her physical beauty played a role in helping to get the man of her dreams, and tomorrow she would have to put her good looks to use again.

She needed to do something more in order to win help her family win over a potential client at the flower shop. For the first time they were meeting with a major tycoon whose daughter was getting married in a few weeks and needed the best floral arrangements he could find. This person is well known as tough negotiator and would find any reason (even if the person's physical appearance wasn't to his liking) to turn down a business deal.

"This isn't working." Ino put her brush down and grabbed a jar from under the sink. "I guess I have to pull out the heavy artillery for this."

Sasuke put the picture back on the nightstand, closed his eyes, and took the opportunity to contemplate if that bottle of lotion his wife had so lovingly gave to him was supposed to be some kind of hint. He didn't want to resort to pleasing himself but his urges were getting the better of him and he knew that he would not be able to hold out for the next 2 hours. "Ah shit." He slid his hand under the waistline of his pants and firmly gripped himself.

Surprisingly about 15 minutes later, much to Sasuke's relief, the recognizable clicking sound of the door unlocking and the knob turning interrupted his session of self-indulgence--er--train of thought. "About damn time" Sasuke thought to himself as Ino slowly pulled the door open and stepped one foot into the bedroom. Before Sasuke could prepare himself, he was greeted with the shocking site of Ino in her bathrobe with her hair curled up in rollers and this green sludge all over her face. Needless to say, Sasuke's urges quickly disappeared.

"What the hell are you doing to yourself now?" Sasuke's eyes widened to 3 times their normal size.

"What the hell are you talking about? I need to look nice for tomorrow!" Ino yelled back as she walked closer to the bed. She was doing all of the yelling while Sasuke spoke in his same monotone voice. Sasuke always spoke this way during an argument because he knows it pisses Ino off even further.

"For goodness sake you're a ninja. Who's going to care about your appearance?" He couldn't help but raise his voice a little here.

"If you paid any kind of attention to me you would have remembered that my family and I have a very important guest coming into the shop tomorrow!"

"No one cares about your vain ass in the shop either."

"Oh, shut up and go to sleep!" The rage in Ino's eyes nearly burned a hole through Sasuke's chest.

Ino climbed into bed next to Sasuke and closed her eyes. Sasuke wanted to do the same but he couldn't take his eyes off his wife. "How could she possibly sleep like that?" That ragged old bathrobe made his skin itch, those boulder sized rollers she was resting on made his head hurt, and that green sludge on her face was beginning to rub off on the pillow. He couldn't bring himself to kiss her goodnight in fear of that slime oozing past his lips and into his mouth. On top of that, he did not understand how Ino could stand that disgusting smell of clay that wafted through the air.

A few minutes later the smell began to take it's toll on him. He felt the chunks form in the pit of his stomach. Beads of sweat formed on his head and tears began to well up in his eyes. His heart thumped in his chest whenever he heard the rustle of the rollers caused by Ino shifting against her pillow. Then she suddenly rolled closer to where his hand was resting and he touched her cheek. Disgusting. The green sludge had hardened and he actually felt it. He couldn't stand it anymore.

"That's it! I'm sleeping on the couch tonight!" Sasuke gathered a pillow and a blanket and hastily got off of the bed.

"Why are you leaving this time?" Ino stood up in an attempt to keep her husband from leaving before he gave her an explanation.

Despite this, he managed to walk past her after muttering, "Because you look like a damn swamp frog" and stormed out of the bedroom and into the living room. He heard Ino screech in aggravation (pitched high enough to make the Ninjas of the Sound village's ears bleed) and slam the door behind him after he left the room and made his way to the couch. "How did I get myself into this?" Sasuke asked himself and fell backwards onto the couch.

He knew that he would not be getting much sleep tonight, so he didn't bother to lie his head down just yet. Scanning the area of the room he noticed another picture. This one was a photo of Ino and her best friend Sakura Haruno. He picked up the picture and looked at his wife's pink haired acquaintance.

He hadn't seen very much of Sakura since he got married but Ino spoke to her a lot. He knew that Sakura was still doing work as a professional Medic-nin and had recently taken a job as a successful writer for the Kohona Nin News, although he wasn't exactly sure what kind of writing job it was Ino knew, but he never bothered to ask her in fear of striking up another argument brought on by her jealous rages.

Looking at this picture brought back a flood of memories starting from 10 years ago. He remembered how almost every female in the village, especially Ino and Sakura, would nearly break each other's necks as they vied for his attention. The picture also reminded him of how Ino and Sakura broke up their friendship over him when they were younger and became bitter rivals.

He could have easily put a stop to their constant bickering… if he cared.

He would have told them that there was no reason to wreck such a good friendship…if he cared.

He should have told them that he wasn't interested in either one of them and to stop obsessing over him…but he didn't care.

He did however love the control that he had over them and his other female classmates. It was hard to believe how clueless girls were at that age. The stupidest thing he had heard was a rumor saying that he liked girls with long hair that made them decide to grow their hair long. Looking back he almost wished that he could have taken more advantage of his power over women. He considered experimenting to see if every girl in the village would risk being placed on the top of the Hidden Leaf's worst dressed list if he ever said that his favorite color combination was red, green, purple and orange. He was positive they would if it meant him giving them the time of day.

But back then, he was way too focused on avenging the loss of his family and all these love stuck females did was get in his way.

A year after he had semi-accomplished his life's goal of doing away with his brother (He didn't actually kill Itachi. He just paralyzed him from the neck down and had him institutionalized.), he was finally able to settle down and work on rebuilding his clan. He was about 19 years old at the time and he figured it was best to start while he was still young. When the word got out that he was planning on getting married, almost all of the village females practically walked through fire for him, though none worked nearly as hard as Sakura and Ino did in competing for his affections. He would be lying if he said that he didn't enjoy this.

The most enjoyable moment came after he narrowed his long list potential Uchiha brides to Sakura and Ino. (The strongest female ninjas in his class.) He wasn't sure which one he could tolerate spending the rest of his life with, so the girls got some strange notion that a battle to the "death" (knockout) would help his decision. Sasuke, along with everyone else in Kohona thought this was one of the dumbest ideas they've ever concocted because no matter what kind of competition Sakura and Io challenged each other in, they always ended up in a tie.

What a battle it was though! First it started with some harmless name-calling. Then it turned into a mild catfight (possibly because the best friends were too afraid to throw the first hard blow). Eventually, the claws came out and it became an all out brawl. Sasuke had never seen such ferocious between two girls…hair flew, clothes were ripped to shreds…and that was just from the predominantly male audience. Sasuke was astonished to see how far each of them had come along over the years and didn't miss a single minute of the 3-hour long fight.

The battle ended with both of the contenders collapsed in a heap on top of each other in the middle of the arena. The only reason that Ino was declared the winner was because she lasted exactly 5 seconds after Sakura passed out from exhaustion. Both girls cracked two ribs, sprained their right ankles, and fractured a collarbone. They spent the exact amount of time in the hospital and it took both girls the same amount of time to fully recover. It was no longer a secret that their abilities balanced each other's out and they were equals. This made Sasuke's decision a lot more difficult.

After many nights of pondering, he chose Ino. "Worse decision I've ever made" he thought to himself before raising his feet onto the couch. Finally deciding to lay his head on his pillow he folded his arms across the picture, which was now resting on his chest. Even though all the years he'd known her, Sakura annoyed him to no end he couldn't help but wonder…

"How is she doing now?"

That same night

A young woman with shoulder length pink hair clumsily stumbled onto her front step and sank to her knees. She was dead tired and could barely stand on her own two feet. A severe case of double vision made it almost impossible to sort through the massive number of keys that she kept on one ring and find the right key to her house. She leaned her body against the door and grabbed the knob with one hand while trying to stick the key in the hole with the other. She struggled to get her key into the door, but she could not steady her hand long enough to hold the key straight. The stupid knob refusing to hold still didn't help the matter either. It was amazing how such a simple task could be severely hindered by not sleeping for three days in a row.

Her five-minute effort to restrain the evil doorknob ended when she opened her front door and collapsed face first into her living room. She rubbed her face into the carpet as if it were a satin feather pillow and hummed a lullaby. The carpet was feeling very soft that night and she didn't want to get up from it. After a ten-minute nap in the middle of her living room floor she picked herself up and dragged her body into the kitchen. She was in dire need of a second wind for the next task that she had to take on. She poured herself a huge cup of coffee that she kept ready made in her kitchen at all times and went into her home office.

She chugged the entire mug full and walked around in order to encourage the caffeine to take effect. (This was how she spent most of her nights…chugging large mugs of coffee like the stupid teenage frat ninjas chugged alcohol before training…dancing around her office like Lee and Gai do when they think no one is watching…working until the sun came up, then retiring for a blissful 15 minutes of relaxation.)

"You can do this, just wake up Sakura." Her body jolted with a brief energy rush and her eyes sprung wide open. "Just stay awake tonight, body and I promise to let you sleep twenty-four hours straight the VERY next chance I get."

Sakura sat in her office chair in front of her computer and prepared herself for another all-nighter… not that she wasn't used to it. After becoming an advice columnist, letters full of people's problems swamped her mailbox everyday. From the first day that she started working, the word "sleep" was almost erased from her vocabulary. She couldn't complain, though. She is the famous Cherry Blossom after all. Her job is to give advice to those in need while keeping their identities, as well as her own, a secret.

This job was ideal. It was kind of like an added bonus to being a Medic-nin. She really loved to give assistance to those in need and put her natural gifts of both physical and mental healing to good use. The rewarding feeling of helping others paled in comparison to the best part about this job, which was getting the opportunity to learn the secret lives of the people in the village.

Those who wrote to her never used their real names but Sakura was always able to figure out whom each letter was from. This was to best way to get into other people's business without being tagged as intrusive. Who wouldn't jump at the opportunity to be the first to know all of the juicy gossip and crazy things that went on in the village?

"There's no use putting it off any longer." She picked up her first letter for the night:

Dear Cherry Blossom,

My cousin and I didn't get along very well a few years back. After a battle and a long discussion, we settled our differences and got along really well for the next number of years. Now all of a sudden, she's starting to bring up the past and using it against me. Sure I almost killed her once, but that was a long time ago. Why can't she just let go of the past! How can I convince her that I've completely changed and improve our relationship?

Unhappy branch cousin

"Not this again, Neji."

Whenever Neji Hyuga wrote to her it generally meant that his sick relationship with his cousin Hinata was in shambles again. Sakura hated the fact that her good advice was being used to bring two cousins back into an incestuous reconciliation, but what could she do? No matter how she worded her advice the next day the gossip columns would have an entire page plastered with photos and articles of the two getting a little too close for comfort.

Sakura straightened herself in her chair and wrote her response:

Dear Unhappy Cousin,

You need to have a talk with your cousin. Find out what could be causing her to act out and suddenly bring up the past. Ask yourself this question:

Are you making her feel inferior to you? If so, she may be bringing up the fact that you have flaws as well. Be kind to her feelings and open up to her. Remind her that you two are a team. If that fails, a little family counseling ("YES! Family counseling to point out that having sex with your cousin is just plain GROSS!") wouldn't hurt.

Cherry Blossom

"That was easy. (In Sakura language that roughly translates into "I'm the smartest woman in the world and now these pathetic idiots are looking up to me!") Now for the next." Sakura figured it would be better to check her already bloated e-mail for this one. She clicked on the mail icon and listened to the pretty (yet irritating) little jingle that told her she had new mail. The hundreds of new messages made it take a good amount of time for her page to load. Using her mouse pointer she chose a message with an interesting title. She clicked on it and read the message:

Dear Cherry Blossom,

I'm in love with this guy, but I don't think he feels the same about me. Even though I am a respected ninja, he is one of the greatest ninjas in the village and I could never live up to his standards. Another problem is, even if he does feel the same way about me I don't think anyone would accept us being together. I'm also afraid that if I told him, he wouldn't want to be my friend anymore. I'm wondering if I should take a risk and tell him my feelings or if I should just try to forget him and move on with my life.

Mad for the Masked Ninja

P.S. Are you sure no one will know who I am? If anyone finds out about this, I'm in trouble.

"You've got to be kidding me. Iruka, Kakashi's not gay! Get over it!" Sakura had to say out loud and accompany her outburst by shaking her head in disbelief. Iruka was another one who often wrote to her about relationship advice. The problem with him is that he doesn't appear to be certain about his own sexuality. First, he developed a thing for older women and fell for Tsunade. Then, he developed a fetish for older men and fell for Jiraiya. Things started to look more normal when he hinted that he liked Kurenai Yuuhi. He could have pursued a relationship with her, but nooooo. He had to blow it by falling for Yamato. Now Kurenai's married and Iruka has fallen for Kakashi. "This has got to be the most confused ninja in the village. The gossip columns will have a field day with this one!"

Sakura was about to write her response when she heard her doorbell ring. "Who could that be at this hour?" She wasn't in the mood for visitors and hoped that if she ignored the bell whoever it was would go away. She turned off all of her office lights and sat quietly but the bell kept ringing. Over and over again the bell rang for about thirty seconds, then it stopped.

"Thank goodness." Sakura slouched into her chair but was startled by someone knocking on her office window behind her. Peeking from behind her office chair she couldn't make out who the shadowy figure looked like and it was really creeping her out. She slid out of her chair and walked hands and knees towards the window but the silhouette disappeared before she could get a closer look. Almost as soon as the shadowy figure disappeared the doorbell started to ring again.

Sakura stood up from her office floor and walked through her living room to her front door. She asked a frightened "Who is it?" and pressed her ear against the door. There was no answer. She checked though the peephole but someone was covering the hole. Probably with a finger. "This isn't funny!"

The doorbell continued to ring.

"I'll open the door slowly. I'll be ready to strike if it's an attacker."

As she unlocked her door Sakura pulled out her kunai and slowly turned the knob. When she opened the door, she let out a loud shriek as a tall blond spiky haired male dressed in orange grabbed her by the wrist and pulled the kunai out of her hand. She struggled to get her wrist out of his hand once she realized who he was. Once she pulled away the stranger wrapped his arms around her and shouted a delightful "Hey Sakura, you're up pretty late! I hope I didn't scare you…"

A/N : This is my first fanfic ever. I've noticed that there aren't very many Sasu/Ino stories, but there is a demand for them so I decided to try my hand at one. I ask that you PLEASE bear with me. I actually have the story almost finished, but English is not my first language and I have to depend on my team to translate everything. Unfortunately for me, my team is ME, MYSELF, and I.

That's right! I have to translate EVERYTHING into English. English …the craziest language on the planet! WHY DOES THIS LANGUAGE HAVE TO HAVE THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO SPELL ONE WORD! And don't even let me get started on the grammar!

AAARRGGGHHH! (banging against a wall) I'm ok. Anyway, thanks for reading and I'll get the next chapter out as soon as I find a good online translator.

Update: I just found something very rare, priceless, and special…A writer who knows my language! WOOT! WOOT! She pitched a few ideas that will give the plot a slight turn. More details when chap 2 comes out.