-This is a SasuSaku story. It's prompted by the book "The Ex Games" by Jennifer Echols.

Full Summary: When Sakura wins the girls' division of a local snowboarding competition, Sasuke is unimpressed, claiming that Sakura wouldn't have a chance against a guy. Sakura calls Sasuke's bluff and challenges him to a head-to-head boarding contest. Their mutual friends take sides, the girls on Sakura's and the boys on Sasuke's, making an all-out battle of the sexes. This friendly competition is bound to get heated- and they might end up igniting some old flames.

Couples : SasuSaku, NaruHina, ShikaIno and others.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor the plots from The Ex Games.

The Ex Games

Chapter 1: Seatbelt

1. A trick in which a snowboarder reaches across the body and grabs the board while getting in the air.

2. What Sakura needs to fasten, because Sasuke is about to take her for a ride.

At the groan of a door opening, I looked up from my Chemistry notebook. I'd been diagramming molecules so I wouldn't have any homework to actually take home. But as I'd stared at the white paper, it had dissolved into a snowy slalom course. The hydrogen and oxygen atoms had transformed into gates for me to snowboard between.

My red pen had traced my path, curving back and forth, swish,swish,swish, down the page. I could almost feel the icy wind on my cheeks and smell the pine trees. I couldn't wait to get out of school and head for the mountain.

Until I saw it was Sasuke coming out of the door of Kurenai-sensei's class and into the hall. At six feet tall, he filled the doorway with his model-perfect looks and cocky attitude. He look down at me with those onyx eyes and smirked.

Oh no: fuel for the fire.

About a month ago, one of my best friends had hooked up with Sasuke's best friends. Then, a few weeks ago, my other best friend and Sasuke's other best friend had gotten together. It was fate. Sasuke and I were next, right?

Wrong. Everybody in our class remembered that Sasuke and I had been a couple 4 years ago in seventh grade. They gleefully recalled our breakup and the resulting brouhaha. They watched us now for our entertainment value, dying to know whether we'd go out again. Unfortunately for them, they needed to stick to DVDs and Wii to fill up their spare time.

Sasuke and I weren't going to happen. But maybe snowboarding could wait a little longer, after all.

"Hn. Fancy meeting you here, Kura." He closed the door behind him, too hard. He must have gotten in trouble for talking with Naruto, and Kurenai-sensei had sent him out in the hall. Must be Naruto sabotaging him.

Join the club. From my seat against the cement block wall of our high school's science wing, I gazed up at him – way,way up, because I was on the floor – and tried my best to glare. The first time he called me Kura, years ago, I found out that it was a brand name for this cat food company. Not exactly flattering.

But I couldn't let him know I was flattered that he'd taken the time to research for a word to insult me with. Because that would make me seem desperate.

"I mean, Sakura." He sounded like he didn't know he just insulted me. Sasuke Uchiha, the infamous playboy in our school, who occasionally was featured in teen heart-throb magazines as the heir to the Uchiha Corp fortune. He would date girls – for a few dates, until dumping them.

I knew his pattern all too well. When I'd first moved to Snowfall, I had been one of those girls. He'd made me feel like a princess for a whole month. The fantasy culminated with one deep kiss shared in the back row of the movie theatre with half of our English class watching us. It didn't end well, though.

"Fancy meeting you here, Ex." He gave me a smirk of sexy confidence, dropped his backpack, and sank to the floor beside me.

"So, what do you think of Naruto and Hinata?" My heart had absolutely no reason to skip a beat. He was not asking me out. He was asking me my opinion of my friend Hinata and his friend Naruto as a couple. Of course, Naruto and Hinata were a legitimate topic of gossip.

"Oh, they'll get along great until they discuss where to go on a date. Knowing Naruto, he'll give way to a lady like Hinata and insist they'll go where she wants to go. And Hinata is too shy and insist they'll go where he wants to go. They'll end up sitting in her driveway all night." I could have sworn Sasuke chuckled. Sasuke Uchiha does not chuckle.

"And what's up with the lazy ass and beauty queen?"

"You mean Shikamaru and Ino?" I raised an amused brow. "HAH! They are just an accident." Oh shit. I didn't just say that, did I? Damn him. He's going to spill this to Shikamaru and he's going to spill it to Ino. I didn't want that. I slid my arm around him.

"But, that's just between you and me. I know how good you are at keeping secrets." I cooed in his ear.

He pursed his lips and gazed at me. Score two for me. I just threw our history back at his face when I found out he was keeping me in the dark when he let the whole class know his secret. Not that I was bitter. But instead of jabbing back at me, he slipped his arm around me too.

I was wearing a couple of T-shirts, both of which had ridden up a little in the back. I shivered when I felt the heat of his fingers on my bare skin, above the waistband of my jeans. My cheeks turned as pink as my hair.

"Now, Kura," He reprimanded me. "Valentine's Day is a week from tomorrow. We don't want to ruin that special day for Naruto and Hinata or Shikamaru and Ino. We should put aside our differences for the sake of the kids."

I couldn't help bursting into an unladylike laughter. I expected him to remove his hand from my hip at my outburst, but he just pulled me closer. He was toying with me. I knew it. But I sure enjoyed it.

"Four years is a long time for us to be separated," He said. "We've both had a chance to think about what we really want from our relationship." This was true. Over the four years since we'd been together, I'd come to a heartbreaking realization that no boy in my school was as hot as Sasuke, not much fun, and nobody was nearly as much of an ass.

For instance, he'd generated pink-crotch comments about me as I passed his table in the lunchroom yesterday. I mean, seriously? A crotch that's pink?! But I know if he didn't made that comment, he was surely responsible for it. So I played along.

"Are you saying you didn't sign the papers, so our divorce was never finalized?"

"I'm saying maybe we should call off the court proceedings and try a reconciliation." He watched me, waiting for me to say something. I had absolutely froze in my mind. Was it just me, or was he trying to ask me out? No freaking way. I knew how Sasuke Uchiha worked. If flirting is what you call work at least. And I won't let the same thing happen to me again. So he had been listening to everyone in class prodding him to ask me out.

Good timing though. I had just broken up with Sai last week because he was just too emotionless. I caressed his hand which he had placed on my thigh without me knowing it.

"I'll mention it to my lawyer." Ha! Take that! He eyed me uneasily, and I already knew what he was thinking. That I haven't fallen to his feet and he was just taken aback.

"What are you doing this winter break?" Winter break was next week. It seemed cruel to lock us up in school the entire winter. They let us out for a week every February, since the base might or might not start to melt by spring break in April.

"I'm boarding with my brother today," I said, counting my fingers. "Tomorrow I'm boarding with Hinata. And on Sunday, I'm boarding with the cheerleaders. On Monday, I'm boar-"

"Basically, anyone who will board with you." Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance. I nodded at him.

"Oh, and I'm entering a huge competition on Tuesday."

"Really, now? I thought you were afraid of heights?" So he'd been listening to me after all. My friends knew I had broken my leg when I was twelve. That actually led to my family's move here at Snowfall. My dad's a doctor, and he got so interested in my physical rehab that he and my mom decided to open up a health club.

Though, my own leg had healed by the time we moved, I was still afraid to snowboard. But I managed when they made me go with my little brother, Takashi, to keep him from killing himself on the mountain. Takashi was a big part of the reason I'd gotten pretty good. And that's how I became the world's only snowboarder with the ability to land a frontside 900 in the half-pipe and with a crippling fear of heights. Not a good combination, if you ask me.

"This competition's different," I said. "For once, there are no big air events or slopestyle or anything that involves a jump."

"Hn."

"Anyway, those are my plans so far." What I meant was, I was free the whole entire week then. Fuck, I sounded desperate!

"Are you going to the Poser concert on Valentine's day?" I seem to forget that he still had his arm around me. He's only toying with me. I can repeat this mantra a million times.

"That's everybody's million-dollar question, isn't it?" I said. "Or rather, a seventy-two dollar question. I don't wanna pass up the opportunity to see Poser, but tickets are so expensive." Sasuke nodded.

"Especially if you want to buy two because you want to ask somebody to go with you." I gaped at him. He stared at me with those dark pool orbs. Was he laughing at me inside? We both were startled as the door burst open. Kurenai-sensei glowered down at us with her hands on her hips.

"Miss Haruno, Mr Uchiha. When I send you into the hall for talking, you do not talk in the hall!"

"Oh." Sasuke said in his innocent tone which he used to flirt with other girls. He bent his head so that Kurenai-sensei couldn't see his face, and smirked at me.

Saved by the bell! Kurenai-sensei got caught in the current of students pouring out of her classroom and down the hall.

Ino shoved their way out of the room with Hinata on her tail and glanced around the crowded hall until they saw me against the wall on the floor. Clearly, they were dying to know whether I'd survived being sent out in the hall with my ex. Both of them focused on the space between me and Sasuke. I looked down in confusion, wondering what they were staring at.

Sasuke was holding my hand. I tried to pull my hand away but he squeezed it even tighter. I turned to him with my eyes wide. What in the world was he thinking? After the insults Sasuke and I had thrown each other in public over the years, we'd be the laughing stock of the school if we really fell for each other.

He wouldn't look at me, though I pulled hard to free myself from his grasp. He just squeezed my hand and smirked up at the gathering crowd like he didn't care who saw us. Which, was everyone.

Naruto strutted out of the classroom and slid an arm around Hinata. Naruto better take care of her. She was the kindest person I know and Naruto was… Well, the opposite. I guess opposites attract. But I think they deserve each other. But even Naruto had a comment as he casually glanced down at Sasuke and me and did a double take on our hands.

"That's something you don't see every day," He stated, earning more stares from passerbys. "Usually by this time, Teme will be going around the lab looking for something to throw at Sakura-chan."

Sasuke glared at the blonde-hair boy. "We didn't do any experiments today, just diagrammed molecules. Nothing to throw, dobe." By now, A two-deep crowd of our classmates had filed out of class and joined the circle. They peeked over one another's shoulders to see what Sasuke and I were up to this time. Then Shikamaru walked lazily and somehow, the crowd managed to split into two to make path for him. He accidentally whacked into Ino so hard, he would have knocked her off her feet if he hadn't grabbed her at the same time.

"I knew it…" He said with a yawn, referring to our hands. Seriously, if Ino wasn't there, I would have whacked him at the head for yawning so much.

"Ooooh." Said the crowd, shifting closer around us. I wanted to scream that they were supposed to be going home for winter break! If Ino, Hinata, Naruto and Shikamaru weren't in the front row, Sasuke and I would have been overrun by the whole class like zombies.

"I was just shaking Sakura's hand, wishing her luck in the snowboarding competition on Tuesday." He stood up, still gripping my hand, pulling me up with him.

"See you tonight." Naruto mouthed at Hinata's ear, making her flush. Shikamaru turned to Sasuke.

"I'll fill you in on Kurenai-sensei said after you got sent out." Sasuke didn't really need to be filled in. He doesn't give a damn what Kurenai-sensei said in the last ten minutes of class before winter break. Sasuke finally let go of my hand. "See you around, Kura."

Shikamaru and Sasuke made their way through the crowd, shoving some obnoxious gawking boys who elbowed them back. While Naruto was still busy hugging Hinata, who was turning purple.

"Naruto, first of all, you don't hug someone that long when it's time for goodbyes. Secondly, LET GO OF HINATA! YOU'RE CHOKING HER!" He cowered in fear at my tone before letting go of Hinata. He turned to Hinata with a mischievous grin.

"Give me gum."

"No." Naruto pouted. Ino and I backed away when Naruto cornered Hinata at the lockers behind. He shoved both his hands in her pockets of her jeans. She started giggling and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"I don't h-have any g-gum!" Hinata squealed, still giggling. "N-Naruto-kun!" She finally shoved him away. Naruto jogged down the hall to catch up with Sasuke and Shikamaru, holding the paper-wrapped bubblegum aloft triumphantly. "T-That was my last p-piece…" She pouted as well. I never would have admitted that Naruto's gum theft made me jealous. Sasuke would never steal gum from any girl.

"Oh my god, DID SASUKE ASK YOU OUT? It sounded like he was asking you out, but we couldn't quite tell. Kurenai-sensei finally came to check on you because the whole first row got up from their desks and pressed their ears to the door." Ino blabbed on while we were walking down the hall.

"Well, I thought he w- WHAT?! You all were listening?!" I could feel blood rushing to my face. What about those comments I said about our divorce?!

"Ehehe.." Both of them chuckled nervously when I glared at them. And then I finally found out was going on here… I folded my arms across my chest and glared harder at them. "You both are trying to set me and Sasuke up, AREN'T YOU?!" Ino stared right back at me while Hinata, the weakest link, glanced nervously at Ino. Busted.

"Come on now," I stomped my foot. "Even you all aren't going to the Poser concert with Naruto and Shikamaru. It's too expensive."

"Sasuke Uchiha has more money than God." I rolled my eyes at her and turned to Hinata. "You really want me to go out with Sasuke after I told you he made that pink-crotch comment about me?" Hinata was all about people being respectful to one another. I don't blame her… She's the heir (like Sasuke) to the Hyuuga Corp.

"T-That did s-sound d-disrespectful," she admitted. "Are y-you sure h-he didn't m-mean it in a f-friendly way?" Incredible. Even Hinata's sense of chivalry and honor was crushed under the juggernaut called Wouldn't It Be Cute/Ironic If Sasuke and Sakura Dated Again.

"What if he did ask you out, Forehead?" Ino called out, bouncing excitedly.

"It doesn't matter!" I wanted to believe that Sasuke had changed in the past four years. But I remembered his dis four years ago as freshly as if it was yesterday. I'm afraid he'll hurt me again. "Stop trying to throw us together!" Seriously, this topic was getting on my nerves. Especially about the pink-crotch comment. So what is my hair is pink? It's natural and I love it.

"Okay." Both of them said in unison.

But I was left with the nagging feeling, despite that promise, that they were not through playing Cupid with me and Sasuke.

That was long! So how was it?! Need your comments please :D
I took a long time writing this chapter. Ugh! The ending here was a little rushed, as you can see.

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Please Review and I'll give you a Snow Cookie! ;D

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