Dedication: to SasuSaku Month, writing marathons, & Last Second Syndrome (LSS. Defined as being stumped until the very last second of a deadline of sorts).
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Summary: The lamp had to go, and, with that attempt, she came.
Prompt: "What are you so desperate for?"


He had it all (vaguely) planned out.

Everyone else was out of the way. His parents were out at a paint store, looking at colors for the guest room. His mother had been musing about it for a while. "Blue – or maybe yellow. Or pink? But it could confuse…" had been her departing words to herself before the door slammed shut behind her. Sasuke had stared at the closed door along with his brother, neither saying a word before they turned away form each other to do whatever they needed to do.

Maybe no one spoke of what her behavior could mean, and for good reason. Mikoto Uchiha had, in very recent times, been short of temper and odd in manner. Just the week before, she had gone from being excited about Sasuke's perfect final exam grades to weeping about how her "baby was leaving her for the cold, hard world", leaving him to awkwardly stand there as he was suffocated by her hug. Add to that the fact that Itachi had come home from class to found her eating a mixture of peanut butter and pickles and no one wanted to bring any of it up.

Meanwhile, Itachi had just holed himself in his room with someone after they had rung their doorbell. Perhaps most parents would be wary about this, especially since this person was most definitely female and Itachi's track record with girls, while not consisting of a long series of notches on a bedpost, was hardly innocent.

But no – their parents were most assuredly not home and not worried about anything at all.

And Sasuke was in the clear.

Before coming outside, he had opened the third window from the left side of the front door.

He grabbed his soccer ball from where it rested, slightly dusty, in the farthest corner of the coat closet and flung himself out the door into the middle of their front lawn. Turning around in the area of grass in front of the open window, Sasuke placed the soccer ball at his feet and looked up at his target

Right at that wretched excuse for a lamp.

It had to be the ugliest thing he had ever seen, no matter what he told the dobe every time he tried to have a go at one of the cheerleaders. The stand bit was in the shape of what must've been intended to be a dancing couple. Perhaps the designer meant to make it a whimsical kind of romantic.

Except they looked like two fox-trotting garden gnomes, one in a red suit while the other seemed to be cross-dressing in a jungle green gown, under a frilly lampshade of neon pink.

Hardly romantic, yet his mother loved that lamp. His father had gotten it three months ago for their anniversary. A true last minute gift, he'd snagged it right off the deck of his secretary (left her more than what it was worth, Sasuke suspected darkly) and brought it home five minutes after his mother had called, wondering what they were going to do for dinner.

He was in really desperate straits when it came to that thing. Whenever he would find himself just about to knock it off the table, someone would appear before he could say it was just an accident. He couldn't just… take it somewhere and hope no one notices its disappearance – his mother was unreasonable about it. She directed the maids as they dusted it every day and, without fail, would end up saying they were incapable and do it herself. Then, when his friends came over, Naruto would find some way to pass by it and try to draw a moustache on the one in the gown.

It was over.

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke took seven steps backward before reversing his direction and driving his right foot into the ball.

Like a blurry comet, it flew towards the window.

Except… it wasn't the right open window and someone just so happened to be walking right by it.

"Ah!"

He… hadn't planned for that.

Turning on the spot to face the bushes between his house and their neighbors, Sasuke pretended to be deeply interested in what laid between the leaves.

"Oof!"

The ball smacked him right in the nose, throwing him off balance. He landed square on his side, wincing when his elbow slammed him in the side. There was the distant sound of the secondary door closing loudly, but he was more concerned with the loud pounding of his heartbeat in his ears and the taste of grass in his mouth.

Slowly, he turned to face the front of the house.

Sakura Haruno – one of his best friends from school who, he just remembered, had asked Itachi to help her with Calculus – was standing on the lowest front step. Her hand was braced against her forehead as she glared at him, her eyes like cold green ice.

"Sasuke?" she growled.

From where he was, half-lying on the ground, Sasuke could just get enough of a view that he could see her hands braced on her hips. Not a good sign, he decided.

"Sakura."

She left the front step and stomped over to stand right by his side, a few strands of her pink hair flying out of her messy ponytail. Out of the corner of his eyes, Sasuke saw his brother standing by the third window, slyly pushing the lamp into the bushes below.

But then there was this foot planted firmly on his chest and he instantly looked up the slim calf of Sakura's right left leg into her slightly flushed face. The right corner of her head had the tinge of a bruise beginning to bloom. As she crouched down until their faces were just inches apart, his heart began to race again.

He couldn't help but wonder if she could hear it.

When she spoke, it was with her breath across his face and a slight purr.

"There's a very good reason that I made the varsity soccer team and you didn't."


To possibly be continued?