Road to Nowhere

Chapter 1

It was another one of those beautiful spring days in Konoha. No one was really doing much besides the occasional trader yakking about his goods, which were usually useless. Sakura had decided that she would just go for a short walk before the hectic day ahead of her in the hospital. "UGHH! I really don't want to go to work today," she said to no one in particular but was actually answered by a very familiar voice. "People do rely on you, you know," said Ino jokingly to her long-time best friend. "Well it's too bad there are no Kunoichi besides Tsunade-sama that are better at healing than me," Sakura arrogantly said back to Ino. When Ino abruptly distorted the topic from work to someone she knew was Sakura's weak spot… Naruto. "So… what did you two do last night," Ino said. Sakura replied somewhat coolly but mostly angrily, "NOTHING!" She said now blushing an exact shade of a rose for her to even suggest the idea. "Yah, Yah," Ino said. "What, you think I'm lying!" She said. "Yah, Yah," Ino repeated. When the two veered in their separate directions, Sakura to the Hospital and Ino to her family's flower shop, they said goodbye to each other. "Phew! That was close, I mean I didn't even do anything and I got blamed for it, total bullshit if you ask me," Sakura said to herself. "It would be nice though," she said somewhat ashamed and blushing before shaking the crazy idea out of her somewhat perverted mind. She also sometimes liked to borrow Kakashi's books, but she would never admit it. When she opened the doors to the overly crowded waiting room, filled with injured Shinobi, she instantly began to do what Ino had jokingly said earlier, which was… save lives. (Meanwhile, back with Naruto.) " 'YAWN!" "Oh man, that was a nice sleep," Naruto said. "Well time for some Ramen," he yelled much more enthusiastically than before. During the three painstakingly long minutes it took to cook the ramen he did 50 push-ups and 100 sit-ups (a similar routine to Lee's just minus a few hundred push ups and some laps around Konoha.) He despised the wait for the ramen so he always had to do something physical before it finished, or else he would turn into one of those people that would spontaneously kill a fellow human being just for the sake of doing something. He was enthusiastically eating his ramen when he noticed that Sakura was walking down the street. He decided to join her even though he knew the hospital was only two blocks away. He also noticed that Ino was walking away with a rather diabolical look on her face, he decided it might be best to not get Sakura even more upset than she already probably was. Even a short amount of time was like a taste of the sweet clouds of heaven to him, but he was willing to forego it fo0r Sakura's sake today. He would go on the longest trip to the other side of the world and back for just five minutes with her. He knew she almost certainly would never return his feelings but he told her on a regular basis how he felt. Just in case she changed her mind. After all there was a glimmer of hope with every situation that he came across. (Meanwhile with Sakura) The fact that he was so optimistic constantly, gave her a warmth in her chest she could not describe. She felt like despite the conditions he grew up in, he was the happiest person she had ever met, which she found both astounding and a miracle; because she knew that Naruto could have ended up like Gaara very easily. The things she knew were his life-line to happiness was two things, his friends and his memories, although she didn't know very much about his memories because he never shared them with her, but she knew that whenever he felt sad he just remembered what it was like to not have friends and that would cheer him up ninety-nine percent of the time. But she knew that some of his times before he came to good terms with the village were hard and lonely. This, however, merely increased her love and respect for the now grown up blonde. Whom she saw as one of the greatest people she had ever met.

(Author's note)

I took some of your guys' great recommendations from my last story and am integrating them into this one. The double spacing is so you can find your spot again a little more easily. Also this story is not going to be a one shot like my previous one, I hope to make it at least 12 chapters with at least 1,000 words in each chapter even though this one is a lot shorter than that. Also I am going to try my best to slow this story down, but the reason the last one went so fast was because it was my first fan-fic and it was a one-shot so sorry bout that. But keep those critiques a comin' cuz as you can tell I NEED them to have any chance of creating a good story.