Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto
Why Sasuke?
The dirt road seemed to be going on forever. Naruto and Sakura had drained all their energy from back at the training course and were now dragging themselves toward her apartment. Sakura had just moved in a month ago. Naruto and Kakashi were there helping her carry all the boxes up to the second story apartment building. Sakura carried the box with all the bedding and blankets as she opened the door to the new refurbished home. The kitchen and living room were the first rooms seen when walking through the oak doorway. Following that there was a cramped hallway with a bathroom on the right, a bedroom on the left and another bedroom at the end of the hallway.
Sakura's legs felt like jelly as she pulled her sore body another inch closer to her destination. Naruto, trailing loyally after her, was in the same state of body and mind, exhausted. Sakura looked back over her shoulder to see that Naruto, despite being overtired wore the same stupid grin on his face. Sakura stopped and waited until Naruto and herself were side-by-side.
"That was pretty good today, ne Naruto?" Sakura asked urging him to speak even through his loss of breath. Sakura and Naruto had sparred for two hours straight, one and a half hours more than usual. Both claiming they had won after thirty minutes of sparring, they continued on when the other would not admit defeat. Both had ended their clash by finding themselves on opposite ends of the field after one final hit. Sakura knew Naruto had won, but wouldn't outright admit it to him under any circumstances. She knew she was never going to be the hero he had been so well-known to be. Even throughout their Genin days, Naruto and Sasuke had never acknowledged her as a challenge to their own strength. A love struck little fan girl couldn't match up to the power of a demon and his host or an Uchiha prodigy.
Knowing they were only about sixty feet from Sakura's apartment, Sakura started to feel light headed and a little bit dizzy. She stumbled over her own feet and Naruto caught her arm helping her stand correctly again.
"Thanks..." She mumbled softly. It was enough for him to hear. Through exasperated breaths he grinned all goofy like and said, "No problem Sakura-chan!" Still smiling, Sakura pulled Naruto by the arm and said, "We're finally here! Now I'm starting to think it wasn't such a great idea to buy a second story apartment." They both sighed in unison.
Sakura, still holding Naruto by the arm pulled him up by the stair's railing, slowly, until reaching the doorway. She pulled the keys out of the hidden spot behind the lit hanging lantern ornament and unlocked the door. She pushed it open as it creaked a long and loud noise. As soon as she and Naruto were in the doorway, she threw her ninja gear on the floor and sunk into her oh-so-comfy couch. Naruto didn't even take his gear off or get on the sofa. He laid on the floor sleeping soundly. She looked over at him on the ground below her and noticed how peaceful he looked. Sakura would've never imagined Naruto, now her best friend, sleeping on her floor three or four years back. She took the blanket hanging off the back of her sofa and dropped it upon his stationary body. Now that she thought about it, she couldn't think of a time when she had seen Naruto so still, he was always showing some sort of jerk reaction.
Sakura lay there watching Naruto with observing eyes. She started to think about how much she overlooked Naruto; his scar on his left cheek from when he got cut before entering the Forest of Death. How he had barely visible freckles over the bridge of his nose, and dark circles under his eyes, from training with Jiraiya and Kakashi. She felt her own eyes drooping from sleepiness and drifted off into slumber.
"Sakura-Chan..." Naruto whispered. He had been awake for about ten minutes now. He knew Sakura had been taking extra shifts at the hospital lately and wanted to let her sleep a little more than him. He knew how much more she needed sleep than he did himself. As the minutes grew longer though, Naruto found himself becoming more impatient, but at the same time he liked to watch Sakura sleep.
"Sakura-Chaan..." Naruto whispered again, this time elongating the vowel in the suffix he so commonly put on the end of her name. Getting up, Naruto squatted over the girl lying down upon the once lumpy couch and stuck his face in front of hers.
Sakura slowly opened her eyes, hoping to adjust them to the lighting in the room. She jumped, and then screamed when she woke up to find Naruto's face close to hers. She punched him over the head while muttering, "Idiot..."
Naruto rubbing his now sore head had looked up to see Sakura. "I waited for you to wake up, Sakura-Chan".
"Naruto you didn't have to wait for me, you could've just gotten something to eat-" Stopping mid-sentence Sakura sniffed at the air and finished, interrupting herself bluntly stating, "or showered. You stink Naruto."
Naruto shocked that she would outright say that to him, was amused all the while also. "You know Sakura-Chan you don't smell that nice either" Naruto crinkled his nose, appearing to show just how much he thought she smelt.
"Idiot!" Sakura yelled at him before replacing his healing bump, with a new sore one upside the head.
Sakura got up and walked into the kitchen, opened her refrigerator and sighed. There was nothing to eat in her home. Now that she thought about it, she hadn't been shopping for food in about two and a half weeks. Actually, she hadn't shopped for anything in that amount of time. Ino was the one Sakura had always gone with. Ever since both girls were fourteen, they made up their friendship as best as they could. The two girls would even try to hang out once in a while. Naruto coming back, shook those plans, where Sakura would usually be busy off doing something with him instead.
Sakura closed the fridge and started to walk down her narrow hallway. Before turning the knob to enter the bathroom, Sakura yelled back over to Naruto, "Naruto! I'm going to shower, so don't try anything stupid", projecting her voice over the last word she continued, "You should go home and shower, just let yourself back into the apartment, I should be done by then."
Naruto sighed and headed out the door towards his own apartment. He had to come back later because he had something he needed to ask Sakura.
Sakura hopped out of the shower, wrapping the towel closely around her body. She opened the door and immediately the steam vanished from the room. Before exiting, Sakura turned her head looking both ways out the door, making sure Naruto wasn't standing outside the bedroom or bathroom door. She slipped inside the bedroom across the hall and put on the clothes laid out on her bed, her leisure clothes.
After changing she opened her door and she saw Naruto standing outside. About to hit him upside the head for being a pervert, Naruto quickly said, "I was just about to knock." She looked at him for a second questioning if she should believe him or not, but brushed the thought out of her head. Leading him back to the living room, she eyed him suspiciously. He looked so content and so focused, but whenever she tried to get his attention he seemed in his own world.
"Naruto!" Sakura said for the umpteenth time. Naruto looked up at her with such questioning probing eyes. "Naruto? What's going on? You're so quiet, it's so unlike you."
Naruto eyed her and began to speak, "Well, there's something I've been meaning to ask..." Pause. "Oh No. I hope he's not going to ask me out again." Sakura thought inwardly.
"Why Sasuke?" Naruto asked not meeting her eyes. Sakura gasped. She wasn't expecting Naruto to bring up him. As soon as Naruto asked the one question that had lingered on his mind for hours at a time, he felt the tension rise in the room.
"What about him, Naruto?" Sakura grinned, on the outside it appeared at least. She felt her barrier, which took her so long to put up and build breaking and crumbling as they continued to take the subject matter more in depth.
"Why do you waste your life on him, Sakura?" Naruto impatiently wondered. Naruto knew he was jealous, but even he had enough pride not to admit it.
Sakura decided not to respond. Naruto figured he should continue.
"Why do you like Sasuke-teme so much? He's always been such an ass to you, treating you like the dirt underneath his shoes, while I would do anything for you to praise me like you did him. You never did like me, never saw me the way you saw him huh? Sasuke won't love you back Sakura." Naruto hated saying it, but he knew he was right. He figured it would just be best to tell her.
Sakura could feel the tears well up in her eyes, what had happened to the cheery Naruto about a half an hour ago? Sakura could feel tears rolling down her cheeks as she repeated over in her head what Naruto had just told her. She was crying, not because Naruto was harsh with what he said, but because everything he had said had been true. Sasuke was probably never going to love her back the way she loves him. In their Genin days from the beginning Sasuke had never really liked her always referring to her as a "burden" or "annoying". She felt guilt wash over inside her, doing what Sasuke did to Sakura, to Naruto.
"Naruto, it's just something you can't understand." Knowing he truly did.
"Yes, Sakura I do understand, don't tell me I don't."
Naruto got up and walked down the narrow hallway. When he came back, he was holding a wooden frame. Inside the wooden frame lay the picture of Team Seven back in the Genin days. Sakura's eyes immediately fell upon the raven haired boy to the left. Ever since the day she saw him standing on the cliff, segregating himself from the others, she would cry over that same boy. That day she had realized how much he had changed and that Team Seven was a mere dream of the past.
Bringing herself back to reality looking to Naruto with his head bowed down towards the picture, she felt tears upon the brims of her eyes for the second time that day. So many times had Sasuke caused Sakura pain, sorrow and disappointment, while Naruto tried to ease that pain. Sakura had opened her heart once and felt she couldn't do it again. But at the same time, she knew she needed Naruto, his cheerfulness and the glowing aura surrounding him.
"Naruto." Sakura started, but Naruto had cut her off again.
"Sakura, don't worry," Naruto said in an easy monotone, "I'll bring Sasuke home for you, I promise". Sakura gaped at Naruto, she had hurt him once again, and she could tell his feelings were being torn. Naruto gently put the wooden frame down onto the floor and looked at it for a second longer. He started to get up when he felt a hand wrap around his wrist. He looked down to her, a bored look upon his face. Sakura's eyes widened as she noticed Naruto gave her the same look she was so used to getting from Sasuke. No emotions found. She searched his face for any little hints that he was joking, expecting him to break out into a fit of laughter and say, "Sakura, I'm just joking!"
But he didn't. Because he wasn't joking, he was upset. And there was nothing she could do to make her body move after him as he got up and walked out the door.
Not knowing what to do, she picked the Team Seven picture up off the floor and walked to her room. She opened the drawer to her dresser and put the picture under a stack of rumpled up shirts. She closed the drawer and sat on her bed. She opened up the window to her bedroom and peered outside. Now looking at the starry sky, she asked herself, 'Why does time seem to go by so fast?'
Sakura was leaning on her windowsill after a while, and instead of repeating the question lingering deep in her mind, she decided to ask Naruto's question aloud, "Why Sasuke?"
A/N:
Okay to be honest I had no idea to end this, so If anyone wants to review and give me some suggestions, I would happily change it. This isn't my first NaruSaku fanfic, but I tried...