Close Your Eyes
Rewritten version of Issues.

What's the same between this and Issues: Most of the storyline
What's different: Chapters are being rewritten, removing a bunch of unecessary scenes, etc. I don't exactly know yet.

Written by: Xmarksthespot
Disclaimer: I do not own.

Under the influence of alcohol... anything can happen. Too bad it's with you.

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Her eyes shut tightly as she told herself that the man standing not too far from her wasn't the man whom she believed it to be at first sight. She could feel her fingernails digging into her skin as she clenched them. The breeze ran through her hair, allowing the teenager to feel a little lightheaded – it was from the mission.

She knew in the back of her mind that she hadn't been completely ready – despite what her teacher had told her – when she accepted the A-rank mission. It was a team mission of course, full of strangers. She remembered asking herself what the point of practicing teamwork was for when she would end up being assigned to those she didn't know?

And as a result, the kunoichi was injured, swaying back and forth through the wasteland. Alone. Her team and her separated part way through, a wonderful plan laid out by their captain, which nonetheless, failed. To be honest, Sakura wasn't even sure if their mission was a success or not.

The mission quickly fell through to the back of her mind, however, since her primary focus was to find shelter to quickly heal her wounds. But something – someone – disturbed her view of the nice rundown restaurant (she was hoping that this building wasn't a mirage, unlike the last two she attempted to stop at).

"If he moves, he's real. If he doesn't move, he's fake," she muttered a reassurance to herself, slowly approaching the location. Of course, the boy had to stand up from his sitting position, forcing the girl to mutter curses under her breath.

She quietly calculated the amount of energy she had left. It was a reasonable amount, but only enough to make one of the two choices: heal herself and be useless, or attack, have no chakra left to heal, and then be useless.

The distance between them shortened sooner than she would've liked, and Sakura wondered if she could raise an arm to wave – as a sign of peace. But midway through her action, she noted that he reached his own arm into a holster.

Her pink brows furrowed at the sight. He never did trust me, she recalled. Her eyes slowly trailed upwards as her feet continued to move. The sun was beating down on her, and would certainly have given her a heatstroke if she didn't get shelter. But if she did get shelter, then she would also certainly get beat by someone whose energy was reserved (because he has no freaking missions since he left the freaking village, Sakura thought angrily).

She could tell that he was on guard, and she could also feel her palms growing sweaty. The ribbons of sunlight laced around her eyelids, forcing them to fall downwards, but she forced herself to stay awake.

At last, they were at an appropriate distance where they could see eye to eye. She studied the teenage boy who donned the familiar frown, and grew out his hair. His loose white shirt only reminded Sakura of her want to be in a location far from the sun, and it was through that imagination that she momentarily let her guard down.

Sasuke Uchiha, quickly grabbed onto his sword and aimed it towards the barely conscious girl. He only needed to keep her out of his way, so he focused on her arms – something to injure the weak girl. His eyes narrowed, surprised that she dodged his weapon.

"Are you insane, Uchiha?" Sakura tiredly yelled. Her legs tried to reposition themselves so that she would have a firm grip on the dead grass. She could tell that she had a slight advantage, aware that Sasuke was most likely going to degrade her fighting abilities. The only thing was, he was at a bigger advantage.

She shook her arms, possibly luring him closer to attacking her again. "Look," she tried to breathe out, but her body began to feel numb. Her dizziness worsened, and she noted the crimson blood dripping from her arm – was it from Sasuke's attack or was it an old wound? Nevertheless, she continued to force words from her mouth. "I just want... I just want to res – "

The world went black.

XxXx

Hesitantly opening her eyes, Sakura could hear the sounds of flames crackling and the crickets chirping. She was confused, remembering the abandoned field in which she was roaming about earlier on. She had assumed nothing was living there, so how could she be hearing crickets? Using her elbows to prop her upper body up slightly, Sakura shifted her eyes, wandering around the room; she was inside the abandoned building.

Maybe I was imagining him, Sakura reasoned. She pushed herself up, moaning in pain as a result. Her hand trailed towards her injuries on her abdomen and arms. Her eyes widened, realizing that they had been bandaged; the arm's wrapping was neat and tidy, though her waist was hastily wrapped with barely any care, as if the person treating her didn't want to focus too much of their time there.

Confused, she looked around once again. This time though, she saw someone standing by the entrance. In response, her body fell back, as she clutched her chest from utter shock. "Oh crap, you're real!" She yelled.

The clever girl soon registered who it was, and on instinct, she summoned her rage into a fist, throwing herself at the man, only to land the punch on a supporting beam. It snapped and several ceiling tiles fell.

Sasuke scowled at her. "Do you want to die that badly?"

Sakura understood what he meant. If she had used up any more of her chakra, the entire building would've come falling down to the ground, killing her weak state – though he would manage to get away easily.

Sasuke then tossed her a kunai. "Knock yourself out," he suggested coldly. He casually made his way passed her and towards the fire. Had he fully understood her, however, he would've realized that it was because of him which triggered her recklessness – that, and the fact that she spent so many years with a short tempered teacher whose personality traits rubbed off on her.

He noticed that she watched him – scowled at him – before sitting down with a harsh thump. Her lips fell into a line, as if embarrassed by her upcoming words. Her eyes fell to the corner, before she muttered, "Thanks, I guess. For treating my wounds." Unable to hear a response, Sakura reminded herself to examine the wounds later for any infections, especially the one by her belly.

Her vision was drawn back onto the teenager though, seeing the stoic faced Uchiha stare in the distance. It didn't seem like he was a threat to her, to say the least. But there was a certain matureness about him, which was a definite sign that he had changed. Her eyes stooped and her breathing softened. She rubbed her bandaged injuries with her unhurt arm, hoping that through those treatments, maybe there was some good in him.

Maybe.

Finally, Sakura gulped and glanced back at the Uchiha. "Um, Sasuke," she left out the familiar suffix, which left her throat tingling – it felt odd. "I was wondering – "

The man interrupted before she could continue, second guessing her request. "I'm not coming back."

Shocked by his mind reading abilities, Sakura's face flushed from embarrassment. "Actually," she drew the word out, syllable by syllable. Her head fell down, trying to come up with an excuse. Through some quick thoughts, she asked, "I was wondering if you have anything to drink?"

"Hn," he muttered while taking the final gulp from the bottle. Rather than smirking at her amusing frustration, he turned away, only to hear immature words escaping her lips. It wasn't until he heard a small growl that the side of his lips hesitantly rose, and his hand reached out for the sack laying down near the rest of his bags. He tossed it back without a second glance, or a word.

Catching it with her one hand, Sakura curiously opened it, finding a bit of food. Again, she muttered a 'thank you', and began to eat it hungrily.

Soon enough though, Sakura grew thirsty, needing something to push the rest of the food down her throat. She had managed to heal herself with what energy she had and soon enough, Sakura got up from her seat, looking around the building. She wondered if there was any access to water within the place, but considering the location, she let the thought go. Glancing over to the dusty shelves though, she saw that there were many bottles of alcohol.

I guess this will do, only a bottle or so though. She reminded herself of the time she had gotten really drunk at a local bar with her friends.

"I'm thirsty, get me one too."

Sakura's eyes rolled, peeved at the lazy criminal. Her lips remained still however, and she decided to grab a few bottles at once so she wouldn't have to get up again. Sitting down, she handed Sasuke the bottle and opened her's. She washed her throat down with the liquid as he did the same with his bottle. The feeling of moisture soaring down her dry throat felt like heaven! Not only that, but it tasted great – Sakura made a mental note of the brand so that she could suggest it Tsunade back home.

The moment she saw that Sasuke finished his bottle, his dark eyes hinting for more, she grabbed one of the spare bottles and handed it to him. She received yet another monosyllabic word. She sighed in response.

"So why didn't you kill me?"

Sasuke looked up to face her. He didn't appreciate her breaking the silence with her annoying voice – just went he thought she would be quiet for good too! He didn't say anything. Instead, he gave a shrug and watched her move her wrist in a rotational spin, observing the liquid spinning inside the bottle as if she had done so many times before.

"Why didn't you kill me?" Sakura repeated. She wasn't going to take a grunt or a shrug for an answer, and knew that by repeating the question, he would undoubtedly answer eventually.

Finally, he responded. "Did you want me to?"

Sakura rolled her eyes at the obvious answer. "No, but you could've just left me there instead of wasting your time treating my wounds," she said, and brushed her hair to the side as she grabbed yet another bottle – they were quite small, so she wasn't worried about taking in too much. Plus, they were rather tasty.

The Uchiha thought for a moment, and said (rather bluntly too), "I don't like the smell of rotting corpse right outside where I sleep."

Furrowing her brows, Sakura sarcastically stated, "Thanks. I guess." She raised her arm to fit her fingers around the bridge of her nose, feeling yet another immense headache coming along – maybe it was time to stop drinking. She tried to remember the tips which Tsunade gave her about drinking too much (something about preventing oneself from being tipsy?).

"Get me another one. I'm thirsty," Sasuke broke her concentration, receiving a baffled look. "What?" His eyelids fell low, not wanting to argue or speak anymore, especially since he was at his limit for number of words spoken per day.

Sakura shook her head in disbelief. "You must be really dumb if you think you can take in all of this. Even with these tiny bottles, I doubt you can drink three, Sasuke," she teased, holding her head steady so that she wouldn't be nauseous. Eventually, she saw that he had gotten up himself to get another bottle.

"Hn, I'm not as soft," he paused, suppressing a hiccup, then continued, "as you." But his balance wasn't as sure as it was earlier that day, and Sasuke soon found himself leaning on a rail for support.

Sakura let out a huge laughter, humiliating the man since he was unable to keep such a large amount of drinks in his body; she was unable to tell the reason for his reddened face. "You are horrible! You know, back home," her words fell as soon as she realized she categorized both of them from the same village, but with thoughts running so quickly at once, she let it go. "Back home, hic, I was the champion at almost every bar!"

"Hn, almost?" Sasuke muttered while reaching for another bottle. Clearly, his actions weren't thought out very carefully.

Sakura nodded, still proud, and an urge forced her to pull out another arm for Sasuke to pass the drink; he refused to. "Yah, the other bars wouldn't let hic me in because I hic was underage. But I went with shishou to the others, so they let me!"

Confused as to who Sakura was referring to, Sasuke furrowed his brows, but felt his body lean back in doing so.

Noting this, Sakura pushed herself up and extended her arm to keep him from falling. "H-hey, watch out." Her fingers reached out, just grabbing onto Sasuke's hand before he tumbled down onto the ground – dragging Sakura along with him.

"Urgh," Sakura yelled, pushing Sasuke's chest so that she could get up. "You're a pain in the ass, Sasuke. Has anyone, hic, ever told you that?" She placed her hand on a nearby shelf for support, but the weak ledge tipped over and Sakura ended up falling on top of the teenager again.

The sounds of liquor glass bottles smashing could be heard as Sakura stared straight down at Sasuke, who, she couldn't tell, was either blushing or really drunk. She knew he was staring back at her too, well, mainly because she saw him do so. It made her feel awkward and yet the amount of alcohol she consumed prevented her from really thinking about getting up.

With their noses just inches apart, Sakura bit her lip through nervousness and embarrassment. Her eyes, however, remained on the heavy breathing Sasuke, who only gazed back at her with curiosity. That was when she felt something else on her lips, which she didn't bother pulling away from.

And sooner or later, the crickets' chirps weren't the only sounds that could be heard.

A/N: Any comments, or suggestions? Please review!