Chapter 1
Sakura
Brown eyes were nice. Blue eyes were a different kind of nice, the happy-go-lucky kind that saw the world with a childlike wonder, but brown eyes just knew. They were mysterious. They were seductive.
Brown eyes would take one look at you in the first grade and leave you looking on for the next twelve years.
"You're doing your creepy staring thing again," Ino commented blandly, not even bothering to look up from her lunchbox.
I flinched, peeling my eyes away from cobalt blue hair and turning to the audacity beside me. I opened my mouth to say something when the platinum blonde took a break from scarfing food into her mouth to raise a hand to my face.
"Save it, I saw you. Hell, even he probably saw you." My eyebrows furrowed slightly as the heat crept up my neck, I opened my mouth but she wasn't finished.
"What kind of a ninja makes it so obvious when they're spying, like you do realize our job is to spy. We're basically training to be spies. That's literally the meaning of our existence." She paused, meeting my glare head on, "dumbass."
My nostrils flared and I swear I tried my best to stop them.
"Why do I bother hanging out with you, you're always acting up like this." I threw my hands into the air exaggeratedly, why did she always have these random mood swings?
Ino scowled at me, "I only act up when I see you doing dumb shit like this, if I don't call you out on it who else is gonna stop you from making a fool of yourself around Sasuke?"
"I am not making a fool of myself," I was yelling now, "I only looked at him, what the hell is wrong with you," I said it as more of a statement than a question because well, I knew that question had no one answer.
Ino abruptly rose to her feet, "well stop. What is looking at him gonna do? The more time you waste thinking about him the longer it's gonna take to get the fuck over him. You're only making it harder for yourself to just move on." Blue eyes weren't always cheerful. Sometimes blue eyes were ice cold and bitchy.
I sputtered. Well that was cruel. Honest and maybe even a little enlightning, but cruel, and my pride wouldn't let me consider the thought just yet. I leaped up onto my feet, scraping my arm against the tree we'd been leaning against in the process.
"That's not your decision to make," she'd yanked the fight right out of me, but I still managed to fix her a cold, hard glare.
"Maybe not but we both know it's about time," here's a fact of life, icy blue eyes never waver.
"About time for what?" Ino and I followed the all too familiar voice, craning our necks up to find Rock Lee propped on a thick tree branch with his arms on his hips and his mouth split in a toothy smile.
I froze as Ino stepped closer toward the tree, a smirk threatening to spread her lips. She propped a hand up onto her waist, "oh we're just talking about how Sakura needs to update her wardrobe asap, it's just too outdated."
Before Rock Lee could respond Shikamaru stepped out from behind the tree. What? How long had he been there?
"Sounds more like it's about-" Ino kicked his shin, her stern expression never changing.
"Nobody asked you." She said blatantly.
"What the hell!" Shikamaru straightened out, staggering back a little as Ino stepped toward him almost menacingly.
"What's going on?" I whipped my head to the familiar voice behind me, not all that surprised to find Naruto with Sasori and Sai not too far behind him.
I inwardly groaned, praying that nobody else had paid attention to our outburst earlier. Them I froze. What if Sasuke had heard? I turned my head left and right, pale pink hair flailing about as I glanced around for any sight of him. I realized, with a tiny tinge of disappointment, that he was no longer in the courtyard.
"Sakura," my eyes returned to Naruto in a flash, "well?"
"Oh right," I chuckled awkwardly, shrinking under their gazes, "it's nothing, Ino and I just got into an argument as usual."
Naruto's expression changed in the blink of an eye. He grinned wide, to my relief, though Sai and Sasori's fixed gazes were a little unnerving.
"Ofcourse-"
"Looks like the entire crew's here," a voice interrupted Naruto as he was speaking. I turned in the direction the boys were now facing, noticing Kiba and Neji had joined in too. I deflated inwardly, well, not the entire crew.
Hinata popped out from behind Neji, smiling bashfully.
"Where's the fight?" Kiba grinned, eyes wandering from face to face.
"What fight? There's no fight," a crooked smile slithered up my face as I made my way toward him, "we're just chillin," I extended my arm and gripped his shoulder.
Kiba' eyes widened, "so what are all of you doing here anyways?" I asked, still squeezing his shoulder.
"We wanted to see if you guys wanted to go eat at that new place they opened up in the village," I turned away from Kiba to find Sasori stepping past Naruto as he spoke, his eyes gradually meeting everyone's in the misshapen circle.
"I'm down," Ino replied. A chorus of "me too"'s rang out of the crowd.
Sasori turned to Kiba, who nodded in approval, then landed on me, who was a head shorter than the previous boy and still clinging to him with one hand.
Looking back over my shoulder, I opened my mouth to respond when he drawled out a "well?"
My mouth snapped shut. Wait. What was that? Where was that attitude coming from? My eyebrow quirked involuntarily but I gave a curt nod of approval, and he moved on to Hinata and Neji without a sparing glance.
"Sakura," Kiba hissed as Hinata's soft voice rose into the air. My head snapped up to meet his eyes, having been left in a mild state of confusion by Sasori I'd completely forgotten Kiba was there.
"My shoulder," he glared down at me and I jerked my hand away as if it'd been burned, realizing that I'd been squeezing down on it, "sorry about that." I scratched at my cheek awkwardly, coughing out a laugh.
"Alright!" Naruto beamed openly, and I was grateful for the loud boy's distraction, "what time do you guys wanna meet up?"
"Everyone be there around eight." Ino ordered more than suggested, but we all agreed as usual seeing as we had no other plans.
With that the bell rang, signalling the crew to return to class.
"What was up with Sasori back there?" Ino asked as she caught up to me near the middle of the disfigured formation.
I turned to her, forehead creased, "right? Like I know we don't really talk so I'd understand if he was kinda awkward about inviting me but that was flat-out rude."
I huffed, still facing Ino, "I think he might be into you though, did you see how he was staring you when he told everyone about the invite?" I grinned.
The platinum blonde smirked in response, "really? I didn't notice," she said, glancing over at the crimson haired boy near Naruto and Sai over by the front.
I followed her gaze, staring at the back of the boy's jutting-out, crimson red hair with an admittedly more hostile undertone to my sea green eyes, my gaze wandering as I checked for a certain cobalt blue haired boy in the crowd of students, coming up empty.
"Anyways, I'll pick you up tonight so get ready on time or I'm leaving your ass at home," Ino said almost jokingly, though I knew she was dead serious. The girl had the patience of a boar.
"Fine, fine." I waved my hand dismissively as we made our way into class.
A/N
Thoughts? I'm hoping to build Sakura up from her originally annoying and flawed character into a strong one instead of jumping straight to the independent woman part haha.
Who do you like better? Sakura and Sasuke or Sakura and Sasori? :$
Review, fave, alert, etc. to let me know if you're interested in the story. :)
