Shallow

I was wondering aimlessly around town in the late afternoon while doing a little bit of thinking. Okay, so maybe it wasn't aimlessly walking. I was actually pretending to look for Naruto in hopes that just maybe I would run into him. When I say him I mean somebody I care about incredibly, somebody who nobody would expect me to become attached to and somebody I so desperately wanted to see.

My heart started beating a little bit faster when I saw a familiar face. It wasn't him, but a very close friend of his and an acquaintance of mine. I actually had always wanted to talk to her about him, to see if she knew anything that I might have wanted to hear.

"Hey Sakura-chan!" The older girl greeted with a big smile. She stood a few intimidating inches above me, not mention she was also naturally pretty. I always wondered is he was or ever had been attracted to her.

"Hey Tenten-san, have you seen Naruto?" I asked her, keeping up the image that I was actually doing something and not just hoping to casually bump into a certain somebody like a love sick bimbo.

"Hm, well I could have sworn I saw an orange flash go by, but that was a while ago," she answered, looking behind her as if my hyper teammate would be there.

"Oh," was all I managed to respond, not really sure of what else to say.

There were a few awkward moments of silence before Tenten spoke.

"Can I ask you something?" She inquired while looking down at me, making me a bit uncomfortable.

"Go for it," I replied, knowing that there was a 99 percent chance the question would be about him.

"Do you like Lee?"

There was something about her tone in the way she asked the question that made me hesitate to answer.

"Well, um, yeah," I answered, avoiding her gaze by staring at a pebble with an ant crawling on it.

"Don't," she scowled and scrunched her nose.

"Why?" I responded, shocked by her reply. I expected more of a, "Aw, that's cute. I hope you two get together." I wondered if there was something bad about him I should have known that would have been a complete and total turn off.

"You could do 20 times cuter. No, wait, I take that back. You could do 80 times cuter than him," she said, making me feel a bit bad for a moment. I wondered if she was jealous and was trying to get me to not like him, but I remembered she had Neji.

I wasn't sure how to respond to what she had said, so I just gave a slight laugh.

"I'm serious, have you ever seen him with his shirt off?" She asked with a smirk and giggle.

"Yes," I laughed, thinking of him with his goofy tan lines from the jumpsuit.

"And you still like him?" She questioned in awe with wide eyes. It was then when I realized she was just naming the physical things. She was just warning me that he isn't the most handsome person in Konoha just in case I might have been blind.

"I do," I answered humbly with smile.

"You're way far gone," she sighed, but she still had a smile on her face, letting me know that she didn't completely disapprove.

"To be honest, I'm not attracted to him. I'm incredibly fond of him though," I said comfortably.

"And that's all that matters. I'm glad to hear it," she spoke sincerely. Before she said that, I was wondering if she and Lee really were good friends to have her talking about him the way she was, but she was just protecting him and making sure I wasn't out there to hurt him.

"How'd you find out I like Lee?" I asked with much curiosity.

"Naruto mentioned it a few days ago," she replied innocently.

"What the hell? How does Naruto know? I'll kill him!"

A/N: A little ficlet that reflects my life at the moment. I like connecting with Sakura a lot. Peace. Love. Happiness.