AU. In this world, it takes a lot more than one night for Sakura to say "i love you". Because sometimes a smile is all you can really give.

"So there's nothing between you two?"

I smile. Liar, liar.

"No. We're just friends."

Hinata is the sweetest, most sincere girl I've ever met. She must have struck upon some bad luck, her mind playing tricks on her, making her have "feelings" for a boy like Sasuke.

She smiles back, bright and true. I swear my heart's breaking.

"He's really sweet, isn't he?"

"To you," I laugh. Sasuke was an asshole, I'd be the first to admit. His eyes cast burns across my skin, black fire from black orbs.

Despite the conflict of interest, despite my own romantic delusions brought upon by the same boy, I did, as earnestly as achievable, want nothing but happiness for the pair. But that wasn't how things worked, not even for a sensible girl like Hinata. Sweet, sweet, Hinata.

Fact: Love just didn't cut it with Sasuke Uchiha. I knew it like I knew the stairs to my apartment, the squeak of the third stair on the second flight, the section of absent railing. It just wasn't enough.

"So tonight," Hinata clasps her hands, as if in a little prayer, her eyes lustrous and genuine. She's so beautiful. They'd make an awfully pretty pair, if only. "I'll tell him how I feel."

I smile.

...

I see Sasuke at his locker. He gives me a nod and I head over.

"What are you doing after school?" He enquires, looking me straight in the eye while shuffling through his bag. There's a pile of love notes on the ground. I watch as he crumples them up and throws them in the adjacent classroom's recycling bin.

"Just some stuff," I lie. Liar, liar. Sasuke sees right through me.

"Hn."

He slams his locker closed. A pink envelope falls out. We both watch it flutter to the ground and I swear I will never tell him that way, words scrawled on a piece of paper.

"See you tomorrow," I call after him weakly. He looks back at me, only for a second, and my heart flutters too.

...

"Sakura-chan!"

Before I can reply, there are two arms wrapped around my midsection, intensifying my nausea. The acrid smell of antiseptic and other chemicals make my tongue curl.

I hate the hospital. But I love Naruto.

(Not like Sasuke. Not...like that. Naruto was not like Sasuke, anyhow.)

"Naruto." I smile fondly.

Naruto died seven years ago. Or, rather, he was meant to die seven years ago, and also the day he was born, and now he only has four months to live. Naruto cannot be predicted; he's walking one day and in a coma the next.

Nobody knows what's wrong with him, and nobody really knows where he came from. His organs are always failing. I swear he's going to outlive us all.

I sit down with him and fall into an easy chatter; what he did this week, what he was going to do next week.

Presuming he'll be alive, that is.

"...and I'll do it, Sakura-chan. You better believe it!"

I push his wheelchair back down the hill. There's sweat on my brow.

"How do you know I won't be President first?" I say cheekily.

"Hey! You can't...well you could, if you tried. Because you're pretty awesome but...hey, maybe you could keep the seat warm for me!"

I laugh. "Okay." Naruto is my sunshine, bright and true. His actions are animated, hands flying up like a conductor, directing the music of the wind and of the birds.

Naruto turns to look at me, cheeks red. "Hey Sakura-chan..."

"Hmm?"

"Have you told him?"

I stare at Naruto's face, heavy piercing setting in my heart, when I notice his face continue to redden, like a drop of food colouring in water. My breathing feels shallow, automated.

"Nurse!"

...

Before I can stick the second key in the lock, the door swings open.

"Oh!" I pause. "Kakashi-sensei!"

"Hello, Sakura. Come, have a seat."

He leads me to the kitchen where I see an elaborate set up of dishes sitting on the table.

My stomach growls, nausea forgotten. "What's the occassion?"

Kakashi stares at me for a moment, before shaking his head. "I...moved in today."

My eyes widen. Right. I see the boxes piled up in the corner, duct taped closed. Did I say I would help? I wrack my brain but I can't remember.

"Oh! Yes. Right."

His one exposed eye crinkles. "You teenagers sure are busy."

I laugh. It sounds wrong. "Of course, Kakashi-sensei."

"You know, you don't have to...to call me that. Anymore."

My hand, reaching for the chopsticks, freezes. "Call you what?"

"Sensei."

"Right." Kakashi's always been sensei. Things like that don't just change because he's dating your slightly-absent mother.

(Or because he's not sensei anymore, not anyone's sensei.)

I was only told of Kakashi's impending arrival last week, an offhand comment from Kakashi while we were waiting for my mother to come home for dinner. Apparently, she said she would tell me. I wonder if I should have warned him that things weren't going to just change because he got a drawer in my mother's dresser.

(She called late, she told us not to wait up.)

"Do we need to make a bathroom schedule?" I joke, putting a piece of sashimi in my mouth.

I see the outline of a smile through his bandanna but there's no trace of it in his eyes. "It's all yours. I mean, I don't really have anywhere...to go." He clears his throat.

"Right," I croak. The clock beats loud like the beat of a drum, click clacking at every second. There's rice caught in my throat and I try not to cough. Kakashi's not a great cook, but not me nor my mother are picky eaters. Food is food.

BAM! BAM! The duo of staccato pounds on the door send both Kakashi and me leaping out of our chairs. I let out a breath and ease myself back down unto my seat.

"Sasuke." Kakashi's eye crinkles again, but his knuckles are white on the doorknob. Sasuke looks frozen.

"Kakashi-sensei." His gaze falls on me, perplexed. I hide my laughter in a piece of burnt seaweed.

Tastes charred.

"He lives here," I say with a straight face, but Sasuke shoots me an increasingly confused look and my composure is crumpled. "What's up?"

He hesitates and I see the same colour of my seaweed solidify in his eyes. "Can we talk?"

I bite my lip. "Sure."

"That reminds me," Kakashi calls out robotically. Shallow, automated. "Sai called."

I wonder if Kakashi wanted to create a mess, or if one boy honest to God reminded him of another, dark hair and darker eyes with a penchant for wrapping hands around throats. Kakashi's waiting for me to do something, say something, when I realize I'm doing the same with Sasuke. His face twitches something unpleasant, then smooths back out, stoic. I let an unconscious breath out at his non-reaction, no enraged fire burning my home tonight.

"Okay," I chirp. "I'll call him back later. Tomorrow." I pull my jacket on. Kakashi and Sasuke just stand there, waiting. I take my time.

"Wait!" Kakashi calls just as I'm brushing past him. He's just been standing there, watching Sasuke watch me. I want to know what he sees, an outsider's perspective on this insider's issue. "Do you have a...," he scratches the back of his head, demure.

"A curfew?"

I almost snicker at the concept, but he's new here, in this semi-hostile environment. His girlfriend isn't home, only her teenage daughter and another former student of his. I grant him mercy, because he'll need it in this household.

I smile. "I'll be home soon."

...

He tells me about Hinata.

"What is with these girls," he jeers, anger flashing like sirens in his eyes, "who think they're in love with me!?"

I keep my lips sewn together. My breath makes uneven clouds in the air, curling up to the top of the swing set. I can't look at him.

"They don't know me, or love, and yet they think to put the two together as if they match!"

Sasuke is the most broken person I've ever known. That's a fact.

His family was the kind covered in prestige and honour, a term that I, an impoverished daughter of a mother at sixteen, cannot even begin to comprehend. Then the world flipped and cracked and in the news event of the decade, the most powerful family in Japan became two brothers.

He's never been the same. His eyes are bloodshot and his nightmares are playing through his head during History class.

He's quick to rage, resentment ringing they way he walks. I'm not scared of him.

"But it's not..." I hesitate, feeling his heavy gaze on my greasy hair. My grip on the swing chain tightens. "It's not just another girl. It's Hinata." Bright and beautiful Hinata, whose father used to play shogi with yours, who you don't mind picking books up for, who gives you a ride home when it rains. Dependable, in every way. She was not all the other girls.

"Exactly," he sneers. "Which is why I'd rather not see her reduce herself to a weak, stuttering child."

My voice is small, shrunken by the grandiose fire of his anger. "What did you say to her?"

"What she needed to hear."

Oh shit, I think. But I keep my mouth shut. I will always keep my mouth shut, no goddamn feeling can pry my lips open and reduce me to a stuttering child.

Maybe he'd be proud, if he knew, but he doesn't and he won't.

His breath evens out and his rage is gone. My job here is done. His limbs, once taut, swing haphazardly, almost languidly.

Sasuke has never and will never walk me home, so I say goodnight and sprint through the alley so I don't get jumped.

/

AN: YEAH so at least Sakura is appearing in the manga...in inconsistent spurts. Oops, spoilers. Anyways, please review please? Suggestions, questions?