A naru sasu that snuck up on me out of nowhere.
Maybe this is a one shot- maybe not. I haven't written a Naru/Saku before that was the focus. But it might be fun. If there's interest and the story continues I may play with it a little. Doubt it will become multi-chapter gargantuan like my others, but perhaps more than just this.
Much love,
Inky
PS: Meet Cute is when two obvious main characters meet for the first time and there's attraction. Meet Cutes are common in romantic movies. Just in case anyone's confused.
She had been watching him for over a month, green eyes piercing, interested in the way his fingers moved over the piano keys. He didn't see anything when his fingers touched those smooth white teeth. His eyes would half close and listen intently to the song inside himself, his body moving slow and steady to a pulse that was in rhythm with his heart.
She would listen too, watching in the background as he danced over the keys his knee moving up and down as he slid his fingers from one side of the instrument to the other, his shoulder blades slicing against the fabric of his black shirt as he played.
Every lunch hour she stood by the door, leaving it open just a crack to peer onto the stage where he sat, fingers sprinting across the white steps.
Beside her Sasuke always watched, face displaying his puzzlement openly. "You really should just talk to him one day."
Sakura didn't even glance at him, her ears tuned innately to the pressure he was placing on the piano keys, the way they danced, the length of his hands stretching to encompass chords in smooth delicious patterns.
"I can't." She whispered back, and she breathed in hard, the pain of the oxygen in her lungs matching the little agonies twisting inside her belly as his song rose with force and magnitude, exploding into the empty theater.
"He's in my drama class." Sasuke volunteered absently, looking back down at his book. "I could mention you...?"
"No." She shook her head. Somehow that seemed cheap. She wanted him to see her one day, to stop and stare, to stumble into her and watch slack jawed as she blushed. Something like that. She wanted a meet cute.
"You're impossible." Her best friend lanced her with a glare that sent most other students shuddering and she smiled back, unaffected. "He's too golden for that." she sighed. "It needs to be natural, like breathing."
"Like stalking apparently." Sasuke muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "I'm going to go have lunch, since you seem busy..." his eyes traveled briefly inside to where Naruto Uzumaki was dreamily dancing his fingers over her heart with that song. "I'll see you in Calculus."
"Yeah." She waved without turning away from the door and he shook his head again before disappearing down the hall.
Her green eyes focused once more on the broad shoulders of the boy on the piano bench. His song had ended abruptly and he turned his head so she could see the silhouette of his face against the brightness of the windows at the back of the room where the noon day sun was blazing.
Abruptly he turned to look over his shoulder and the sky blue of his gaze pierced through the room, locking on her and she squeaked, slamming the door closed, pelting down the hall as fast as she could go, heart racing.
That was not exactly the meet cute she had been dreaming about.
Lunch hour the next day was a sullen affair.
"What is wrong with Billboard Brow?" Ino's voice cut through the fog of her glum thoughts. She couldn't talk to Naruto now, not when he had seen her at the door, watching him like a creep. Swallowing her sick feeling thickly she looked up, attempting to fix her friend with a glare that would shrivel her up but Ino cocked her head at her, spilling her blonde curtain of her hair over her shoulder. The concern on her face was too real for shrivel inducing glares, instead she lowered her head to the table , covering her ears with her hands.
Sasuke sitting beside her blinked at her thoughtfully before stabbing his salad with a fork. "I think she may have blundered when stalking the idiot."
"The Idiot?" Ino inquired with capital letters to express his importance. "Oh dear." she turned back to Sakura. "What kind of blunder, dear?"
"The bad kind." Sakura murmured from her muffled place on the table. Beside her Shikamaru eyed her lazily. "Most unhelpful explanation I've heard in a while."
"I... was watching..." Sakura began after a moment of letting his words hang in the air. "Stalking." Sasuke supplied simply, interjecting truth where he could. Sakura's green eyes glared at him from between her fingers. "...and then I must have made a noise or something and he turned and saw me and like a...chihuaha... I made some stupid strangled sound and I slammed the door and I ran away."
The ran away portion of the sentence was stressed and everyone chewed in silence, eyeing her as they contemplated their next words.
"Well, shit."
"Awkward."
"That fucked it."
"Aaaargh." Sakura whimpered, lowering her forehead to the table again. "Why am I such an idiot?"
"Uh oh." Ino hummed, scooting her chair closer to the table.
"Incoming." Shikamaru murmured and Sakura tensed, sitting up quickly rubbing the pink spot on her forehead where she had slammed it against the table. Her green eyes took in the shape coming towards them and she slowly began to melt into her chair.
"Kill me now."
"I don't want to go to jail." Sasuke whispered, eyeing the blonde approaching the table cautiously.
"Please."
"Does life sentence mean anything to you?" His inquiry was making her angry.
"Too late." Ino smiled brightly, switching on the megawatts in her grin as she turned around in her chair, flashing the other blonde with her teeth. "Hey!"
"...Ah... Hi..." Naruto's voice was deeper than Sakura remembered and it made something throb in her belly. Biting her lip until she thought it might bleed she stared at her hands, hoping her hair hid the heat rising to her ears.
"I was just wondering if you're Sasuke Uchiha..." he was looking next to Sakura, to the one person at the table least interested in his appearance. Surprise flashed over everyone's face. Clearly they had been expecting the humiliation of the Haruno among them but instead Sasuke blinked at him. "Yeah, that's me."
"I have a few pieces..." Naruto's hand moved through the binder in his grip and for a second his blue gaze flashed up, landing on Sakura's face making her jump and look away pointedly. "Um... I was hoping you might be interested in recording some of them with me. I play piano."
"Yes I know." Sasuke stated with a heavy emphasis as he glanced at the pink haired girl next to him who was doing her best impression of an inanimate object.
"Oh good." Naruto extended his hand out to him with the sheet music and the stretch of his body over the the table accented the smoothness of his stomach, the muscles of his forearm and shoulder and Ino's gaze slid from his wrist to his hip appreciatively, turning to Sakura with a wicked grin.
"Mr. Kakashi was saying that if there was anyone who could handle these on the cello it would be you." He continued, unaware of the sad shaking of Shikamaru's head at Ino.
"I would think so." Sasuke replied without a trace of embarrassment at his haughtiness. "Is it for a project or...?"
"No. Just... pleasure." Naruto's voice wavered near the end and for a second Sakura thought his blue gaze might have wandered to her again but with her eyes firmly on the table she couldn't be sure.
"Hm. Let me think about it. This semester's work load is a bit heavy." Sasuke replied and jumped at the feel of Sakura's foot landing on his beneath the table abruptly.
"But probably." He added with a bit of venom.
"Sure. Thanks." Clearing his throat Naruto backed from the table slowly. "Keep the music, I have copies. Thanks again." And he was turning around and walking away before Sasuke could say more.
"We could not have been more awkward." Shikamaru muttered, tossing an empty styrofoam cup at Sasuke who batted it away like it was nothing. "I was fine, you three." He nodded at the table. "That was painful to be alive for."
"My God." Sakura whimpered again, burying her face into her arms.
"He still hasn't made a tonne of friends eh?" Ino muttered, watching him grab a bowl of something at the cafeteria counter before heading out the door on his own again. "Transferring would suck halfway through the year."
"Isn't he adopted?" Shikamaru added. "I thought that's why he got transferred."
"Yeah." Ino nodded. "Principal Tsunade's new kid."
"I gotta go." Sakura muttered, not wanting to continue hearing about the crush she had thoroughly screwed up. "I gotta get to class on time for once or Mr. Kakashi is going to blow a gasket."
"Lamest excuse ever." Shikamaru muttered. "You suck at speaking today."
"Kakashi is literally always late." Ino continued. "Always."
"I'm going." Sakura shouted over them, throwing her bag over her shoulder. "I'm going and you can all just shush up."
Bellowing things after her and throwing empty straw wrappers at her back her friends did their best to not shush. Gasping, she scampered away, hoping to lick her wounds in peace in an empty classroom.
No such luck.
She had already closed the door behind her when she heard the tapping.
Her eyes shot up to the back of the class by the window where he sat, headphones on, eyes closed, fingers moving across the desk on an imaginary piano like they were floating.
Air caught in her chest she stared, frozen. If she moved slowly, carefully she could get out without him noticing, probably he wouldn't even realize she had been in there and she wouldn't have to-
Blue eyes blinked rapidly and then his hands were moving to his headphones and he was smiling and her knees were wobbling and he was saying something but all she could do was look at his mouth and the shapes they made and how pretty his lips were when they formed her name.
"...you're Sakura, right?"
"Eh?" She gasped, and then pressed her books to her chest so hard she could feel their spines digging into her skin. "Uh, yeah. Sakura Haruno."
"My mom said that you would be a good person to ask for help in class, since I'm still catching up." He lifted up a book and she jumped a bit again, as though he were going to throw it at her.
Sakura, holy crap. Get a grip for god's sake.
"O-h! Your mom?" she didn't know why she asked that but slowly she took a couple of steps in the direction he was sitting before placing her books on her desk, lacing her arms behind her back nervously before approaching him.
"Yeah, she's the principal. You're like, Advanced Placement and stuff right?" He blinked at her. "I'm... less than educationally inspired."
"Educationally Inspired." she whispered, and found herself smiling. "Sounds like your vocab is doing just fine though."
He cracked a grin and she felt like maybe the sun had landed in the classroom, her tummy twisting again inside her gut. "I read just fine but that's about it." He tossed the Calculus book on the desk surface. "Math may as well be Chinese. I have no use for it."
"Doesn't music...um... require a lot of time signatures and stuff?" Sakura leaned against the desk next to him before forcing herself to pick up his textbook, ignoring the little bit of shake in her hands.
"Those make sense." He was watching her intently and with some trepidation she looked up to meet his blue eyes, watching with sheer pleasure as they smiled back at her just like his mouth did.
"Well, I actually tutor in the afternoons, on Wednesdays- " she stopped abruptly, picturing herself with him and Lee in the class, going over math and wincing. "Actually no, that... that might not work, the other person I tutor is a bit... uh..."
"Boyfriend?" He cocked his head a little and the sun from the window played with the shades of gold and yellow in his hair. She sucked in a breath. "No, no, I don't have a boyfriend."
"I thought for sure that guy- with the unpleasant expression." He snapped his fingers a few times. "Sasuke."
Sakura's eyes went round, and then she laughed. "Sasuke! No... he's like...my brother..." And she giggled again watching him studying her face, blue gaze roving over her pink cheeks. "He and his brother Itachi live with me and my family. Since he was tiny."
"Okay." He said it like it was something he had been wondering and had just figured out. Blinking back at him interestingly she extended the book to him again. "Sasuke has one day a week he's free so far, so if you're both going to be here late practicing and recording whatever you were talking about at lunch maybe I can help before or after that?"
"I would really appreciate that." He grinned again, and laced his fingers behind his head, peering at her curiously. "Do you play anything? You...you seem like a musician for some reason."
Startled Sakura blinked. "No, I... I am tone deaf, unfortunately." she smiled. "But it's something else to watch you talented people play."
"Huh." He seemed puzzled, his eyes roving to her sides where her fingers were twitching. "Just seems like you have the kind of fingers for piano."
Before she could think it through she was spitting it out. "Maybe you could teach me."
The slow stretch of his lips over his teeth and the glitter of mirth in his blue gaze made it so there was no hiding the blush, no denying her nerves.
"Maybe."
There. She smiled back at him for a moment longer before everyone else in their class began to flood in, their loudness contrasting with the moment of stillness stretched between his blue gaze and her green eyes. That's the meet cute I was hoping for.
I'm curious about this one. Kinda toying with the idea of adding to it. Not sure.
Leave me some love, ne?
Inky
