They fuck.
They're both really drunk, but that's not why (at least for her). She'd picked him out earlier in the night when everyone had been sitting around playing kings. He was not her usual type – barely taller than her and sinewy with an almost skittish disposition – but he had a kind look in his dark eyes and she was tired of being hurt. She wanted someone like him – someone clean and shy and different – to like her. So she downed her drink, drew her card, and flashed him a coy smile.
When midnight hit and everyone began to toast and wish each other a happy new year, he made his move: shoved a plastic cup of champagne into her hand and pressed his lips against hers. He was still obviously nervous – the liquor hadn't completely fixed that – so when he tangled his fingers into the short, pink hairs at the nape of her neck she pretended not to notice the way they shook against her skin.
"I've never kissed anyone before," he whispered into her ear and she broke out into a smile at that. He smiles back and before she knows it they're both laughing – drunk giddy laughter that bubbles out of them without any thought.
They continue the night like that – drinking and laughing and kissing – until they're snuggled under a blanket together on the floor, surrounded by other intoxicated teens that barely notice them. They use the solitude to kiss, now with no interruptions, moaning and panting and he rolls on top of her, moving his hand down to the junction between her legs with feather light touch.
"You're so fucking cute," he sighs and she can barely hear it over the sound of her heart thumping in her chest. When his hand brushes against her core she jumps, suddenly coming back to herself with such speed that she can't help but giggle again.
"Not here, silly," she says, catching his lips against hers before he has time to overthink her rebuke.
"The bathroom?" he queries softly, pressing shy kisses against her neck and whispering little compliments into the shell of her ear. She doesn't agree – just giggles – and he leads her with hesitate footsteps into the bathroom.
His hands are noticeably shaky and he barely even gets it in. No matter how much he tries he can't get off (and sure as fuck isn't getting her off either) so he pulls out and slumps to the ground. He looks at her suddenly – horrified, as if he forgot she was there – and starts spewing apologies and excused (I'm so sorry, I jacked off twice today, the alcohol didn't help) but she silences them with a kiss.
"It's alright," she cooes, "Everyone's first time is terrible."
He kisses her forehead and tells her she's sweet, helps her back into her clothes and pulls her to his chest when they return to their spot in the living room.
Sakura closes her eyes and thinks she could get used to someone like Lee.
Sakura wakes up cold and alone.
She hears Lee talking from somewhere near the kitchen, and though she only catches a few words, she knows he's talking about last night and her chest burns.
She tries to shake it off – he doesn't say anything bad about her and it isn't as if she'd asked him not to tell – but somewhere in her mind she'd hoped that what happen between the two of them would stay between the two of them. But instead, she wakes up to him spilling it all to a virtual stranger (she thinks his name is Neji but they hadn't talked a lot last night and so she can't be sure).
She waits until Neji leaves, his girlfriend is slung over his shoulder and he softly bids Lee farewell as he closes the door behind him, and then pretends to slowly wake up, turning her head this way and that. She thinks that if she can just look at him that things will be okay.
They aren't.
He doesn't acknowledge her, doesn't look at her and certainly doesn't speak to her.
She feels like acid is burning her heart.
He leaves as soon as the others are awake and doesn't look back.
Sakura doesn't know why it hurts so badly, but it does.
When she closes her eyes, all she can see is his cool indifference, the way he had actively avoided her gaze.
Ino tells her not to overthink it. You were his first kiss and first lay, all in one night. He didn't know what to do, I'm sure, Ino says one night over dinner. And Sakura thinks it's true and yet she can't shake away the fire that burns in her chest.
It's the surprise, she realizes, after many nights over turning the situation over and over in her mind. Sasuke hurts her. She knows he will and he always does – she could practically use their sadistic cycle as a calendar. But someone like Lee, someone who had never been kissed, and who had complimented her all night, who's fingers shook against her skin, and who kissed her so softly – she hadn't been prepared for that pain. She hadn't expected him, whether unintentionally or not, to make her feel so dirty, so cheap and so used – so ashamed.
Sakura's chest constricts painfully at that because it hits too close to home: she's ashamed. It rolls around in her mind like a marble, clinking against her brain until the echo of it is all that she hears. Shame. Shame. Shame. She sobs harder and harder, giant heaves that come from deep within her chest and shake her whole frame on their way out and thinks, No more. I can't live like this anymore.
It's painful, that's true, and yet that one singular thought gives Sakura a sort of instant relief. She doesn't have to live like this, doesn't have to feel used, doesn't have to try to earn love from sex.
She can change – will do it when she wants to, if she wants to, and not because she wants someone to like her.
Sakura pulls herself up off the bathroom floor and catches her reflect in the mirror. She looks terrible, truly. Her skin is splotchy and red, her eyes bloodshot, and snot is dripping from her nose. And yet, for the first time in a long time, Sakura thinks that she could learn to love the girl staring back at her.
And somehow that makes all the difference.