Wow. It's been a while since I posted up anything. I guess it's both because I still have my multi-chapter fic on hiatus and the fact that my favorite characters have very spread out birthdays. See! I told you all that I'd still be doing my birthday fics. It just took a while for a birthday to come up :P. And I have to apologize for this being a little late. My internet doesn't like to work up at school Dx.
Okay. So I'm guessing some people MAY want an explanation as to why SAKURA is on my favorite character list. Well… Shippuden has really shown a different ((and more useful)) side to her that wasn't shown in the first part. I've gained a new respect for her. And as long as she's not stupid enough to end up with that meanie-face Sasuke, then I'll still like her.
Now to the story. Don't think this means I'm less for NaruSasuNaru! Please! They've been my OTP of the series since I started reading it! They'll always be my number one! I'm just more… anti-Sasuke right now because he's a douche XD ha, ha.
"Man, Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted in glee as he looked over at his pink-haired teammate and friend. "I can't believe you just wailed that asshole Sai like that! Best thing to happen all day!"
Sakura giggled as she played with a lock of pink hair; the ends still felt slightly damp from her previous trip to the hot springs where she had been absolutely mortified by Naruto's loud outburst about Sai talking about his penis from the male side of the baths.
"You're my hero now, Sakura-chan!"
"Well, he deserved it and my punches hurt more than yours." Sakura said proudly, idly clenching her fists that rested on the wooden floor by her pale legs. The small motion did not go unnoticed by Naruto and the blonde suddenly remember just how terrified he had been when he first witnessed Sakura's super human strength in action.
"And…" Naruto paused, trying to get his mind off the frightening images of Sakura and her fists out of his mind. "Oh. It was as really cool the way that you defended Sasuke like that. You say some awesome lines, Sakura-chan!"
"O-Oh! Really?" the pink-haired shinobi blushed and turned her gaze away as the compliment registered in her mind.
There was a silence after that. Sakura twiddled with her drying hair and Naruto stared at the content face of his friend, a look of contemplation plastered onto his maturing features. It was not long before Sakura noticed the blonde's odd, piercing stare, making her emerald eyes want to avoid his concentrated gaze even more so than she had wanted to avoid it when her teammate had complimented her moments ago. The awkward silence soon became unbearable for the young kunoichi to handle and decided it was time to break the ice once again.
"You know Sai really is—" she began, but her words died in her throat the moment Naruto opened his mouth to speak.
"Are you still in love with Sasuke?"
The sentence hung in the air, polluting it with another awkward silence that threatened to suffocate Sakura with the very words that she held back in her throat. She bravely stole a glance at her friend and regretted it immediately. His eyes were so honestly curious; so crystal clear as they refused to hold back any and all emotion that even flickered through the blonde-haired boy. Once glance into those endless pools of blue, as Sakura could find the courage to answer her long time friend.
There was no response.
Only silence.
--
A bright light shining through the cracks of the plastic blinds poured into the bedroom, casting its shining rays into Sakura's tightly closed eyes and forcing her from her slumber. With a small groan voicing her irritation that morning had already come, the young shinobi rubbed her emerald orbs and slowly peered at her surrounding, taking in the details of her bedroom as her vision returned to normal.
"So that was just a dream." The young pink-haired girl mumbled as she thought back on the last thing remembered before waking up. Of course Sakura knew that it had to have been a dream. She had no memory of Naruto ever asking her that question, so, by that logic, it had to be a dream.
But that did not mean that the feeling the dream left behind did not still linger.
A yawn escaped passed pinks lips as Sakura woke slowly from the after affects of her peaceful night of rest, one of the few full nights of sleep she had in quite some time. Between the almost constant stream of missions being thrown her way and the many hours of spent with her teacher and Hokage, Sakura barely seemed to have any free time these days. She hoped that the amount of missions throughout the Land of Fire would soon decrease or that more ninja would be available in the near future. Until then, the young kunoichi would treasure these rare night where she could sleep soundly in her own bed without having to constantly be nervous about sneak attack during her rest.
Her green eyes drifted over to the small calendar that hung above her small bedside dresser; her gaze drifting the bright red circle that encased the small square numbered twenty-eight. A small smile crept onto her still tired features.
"Another year has passed by already." Yet another half mumbled slipped past her lips. "Time flies by so quickly."
Slowly the young ninja pulled down the warm sheets off of her body and lugged herself out of her comfortable bed. Sakura had a feeling that Ino would drag her along somewhere, just as the blonde-haired girl had done the year before (and the year before that as well), and wanted to at least have gotten a shower before her friend barged her way into her home and forcefully stole her from her home. The pink-haired kunoichi pushed open the bathroom door and stopped when she caught sight of her reflection in her mirror that hung over her porcelain sink. She tugged lightly on a strand of pink hair that hung over her green eyes, measuring its full length as she pulled the strand of hair to its limit and noticed that her bangs were dangerously close to covering all of her emerald eyes.
"I need a haircut." She muttered before she released the strand of hair and went back to glancing over her reflection.
For some reason, her dream from the previous night popped back into head and along with it came the echoing voice of Naruto asking her that same question over and over again. Sakura huffed at the question, closing her eyes in hopes that if she concentrated enough, she would be able to simply will the voice of her friend away. Eventually the question stopped replaying and Sakura opened her green orbs quickly, meeting the gaze of her own reflection, before she sighed a heavy breath of relief.
"Naruto." The pink-haired girl muttered, trying to laugh at her own stupidity for still thinking about the dream. "Even in dreams you cause nothing but trouble."
She walked away from her mirror and continued on to her shower, hoping that focusing on her personal hygiene would distract her mind away from thinking about a dream that held no ulterior meaning behind it.
--
"Happy Birthday, Sakura!" Ino cheered as she stood in the doorway of the pink-haired shinobi's house, a bright smile on her lovely face. "I see that your big forehead has grown just as much as you have this year!" The blonde teased as her pale blue eyes narrowed in a mocking fashion.
"Very funny, Ino." Sakura said as she finished tying her hitai-ate around her head. She was thankful that her blonde friend had shown up at her house later than she had anticipated, which gave her plenty of time to make herself presentable for the outside world.
"Well, come on!" Ino said as she grasped onto the pink-haired girl's tiny wrist, dragging her from her house and into bright light that engulfed the entire village. Her emerald orb squinted from the intensity of the sun, but only seconds later did Sakura's vision adjust to the drastic change in lighting.
"Where are you taking me today?" Sakura asked, her curiosity getting the better of her and let the question slip passed her lips.
"Not telling!" Ino said cheerily.
"Should have guessed that much." Sakura mumbled.
"… But I do have to stop at the flower shop before we go." The blonde said after a short pause, almost as if the idea had just popped into her head not a second before she had said it. Sakura eyed her friend suspiciously.
"All right." Sakura was not sure what exactly Ino was up to, but decided that she might as well just go along with the blonde's whim, less she suffer more aggravation and stress by refusing the other kunoichi.
The short walk to the Yamanaka's flower shop did not take the two young girls very long at all, considering how close the two girls' households were to one another's. Once inside the shop, Ino paused for a moment before she grabbed her apron that was hung behind the cash register and began to assemble a bouquet made mostly of lilies and lilacs with other flowers and greenery thrown in.
Sakura watched her movements, but was distracted every now and then as the blonde girl began to idly chat whilst she worked. Realizing Ino was probably trying to distract her anyways, Sakura did as she usually did while she and Ino were inside the flower shop and browsed through the many varieties of flowers and other plants that the shop had to offer.
"And then Shikamaru was totally trying to deny that anything had happened, but I wasn't buying it." Ino said as she began to wrap up her bouquet in plastic with a lovely white ribbon keeping the flowers together. "I mean, anyone would had been able to tell that was a lie if they had seen the way that he and Temari looked at each other before she left to go back home to Sunagakure. It seemed almost, predator-like. Shikamaru and her were totally eye-raping each other!"
"Are you sure you're not just looking too much into this, Ino?" Sakura asked as she looked over at the basket full of different color chrysanthemums, picking one up to look it over more closely and then taking in the beautiful aroma for second before returning the flower back to its place amongst the others.
"Positive!" Ino cheered as she cut off the end to the ribbon she had just tied around the bouquet.
Sakura rolled her eyes and she strolled down the aisles created by the many rows of the baskets containing the beautiful flowers and other plants. She felt content to just let her friend continue talking about Shikamaru and Temari's so called "secret love affair" as she focused more on the flowers and let Ino's voice fade into the recess of her mind. Ino was unfortunately a welcomed alternative to the thoughts about the dream she had last night. The last thing she wanted was an annoying dream, that she was certain meant nothing more than just being a dream, messing with her brain and stressing her out on her birthday. It was one of the only days that Sakura just wanted to relax and she was determined to do it.
"I wonder how they two of them will cope when the Chuunin Exams are over." Ino said dramatically. "How will Shikamaru and Temari survive without seeing each other almost every week?!"
"Still going on about Shikamaru and Temari, Ino?" a familiar voice said as the bell to the entrance of the flower shop rung loudly throughout the small area. Both Ino and Sakura looked up to meet the owner of the voice, their heads snapping upward so quickly when the sudden voice had interrupted their (mostly one-sided) conversation.
"Hey there, Chouji." Ino said with a bright smile as her friend and follow teammate walked further into the shop. "What brings you here?"
"Just stopping by." The larger boy said with a smile as he scratched at the roots of his light red-brown locks, looking a little embarrassed (though it was hard to tell if the boy was blushing or not with the red swirls covering the bulk of his cheeks). "Shouldn't you be heading off to Sakura's—?"
Before Chouji could finish what he was about to say, Ino seemed to panic and "accidentally" knocked over an empty flower pot from the counter beside her, sending the clay pot hurdling to the floor and ultimately landed on the tiled ground and shattered into many pieces.
Sakura gasped at the sudden loud noise and looked over at Ino and then down at the broken clay pot before looking back over at her blonde friend. Ino seemed to look panicked, her pale blue eyes set into a stern gaze and her perfectly plucked eyebrows cast down, making her gaze even more threatening. But the only problem that Sakura found with this situation is that the blonde was looking over at Chouji instead of focusing her attention toward the pot that she had just broken. The pink-haired kunoichi looked back and forth between her two friends and noticed that their eyes seemed to be having a private conversation amongst just the two of them.
She suddenly thought back to Ino's previous conversation about how Shikamaru and Temari had supposedly "eye-raped" each other. Looking between the two of them, she wondered if it would lighten the mood or just make it worse if she brought up that the two of them sort of looked like they were doing the exact same thing.
Chouji finally broke the eyes contact with the blonde shinobi and cast his gaze over to Sakura's general vicinity. His eyes widened as if the large boy had not even noticed the pink-haired girl before this moment. "Oh!" he burst out, his voice filled with shock. "S-Sakura! I didn't even see you there. How are you?"
The pink-haired girl ignored his slight stuttered and tried to act as normal as possible considering the odd tension in the room. "Hello, Chouji. I'm fine."
"That's good. Uh… Happy birthday." He said with a small smile.
"Thank you." Sakura offered with a small smile, but then looked back over at Ino to see that the blonde-haired girl seemed to be more at ease than she had a few second before. "Shouldn't you clean up that pot, Ino?" Sakura asked cautiously.
"Oh right. I don't want customers to accidentally step on any shards." She said softly as she took the broom that sat in the corner of the store and began to sweep up the broken pieces of the pot, humming mostly to herself as if she was trying (maybe too hard) to act normal.
"I've got to get going." Chouji said, his voice still carry some of that nervous tone it held after the clay pot had broken on the floor. "I'll see you girls around."
"Bye, Chouji!" Ino cried happily as she stopped her sweeping and waved the large boy off, which he returned though not as enthusiastically as the blonde shinobi had done.
"Goodbye." Sakura called from her spot close to the back of the shop, and Chouji nodded back at her before he ventured out of the Yamanaka's flower shop.
The tension in the air seemed to lessen the moment Chouji left, but there was still a hint of that odd awkwardness lingering around in the air. Sakura slowly made her way over to blonde currently sweeping up the last pieces of the broken pot and said nothing as she watched her friend work.
Once Ino had thrown the broken pieces into the garbage, she turned around to face Sakura and gave her friend a big smile, which seemed out of place considering what had just transpired moments before. The pink-haired kunoichi would have expected her friend to lash out at Chouji for distracting her and pinning the blame on someone other than herself or at the very least be irritated that she had broken a pot. Sakura arched an eyebrow at her friend's odd behavior, but then realized that Ino was always doing odd things and thought nothing more of the blonde's behavior.
"All right. I'm all done here." Ino said giving one last look around the shop as she started to untie her work apron. "Let's go." The blonde hung up the apron behind the cash register, the very place it had been before she and Sakura had entered into the shop, and then walked back over to her friend and grabbed onto her wrist like she had done when they had first met up earlier that morning.
"Okay." Sakura sighed as she once again let herself be dragged around by her friend.
The two girls walked along the streets of Konohagakure, both of them taking their time and strolling down the busy streets at a leisurely pace. Sakura figured that Ino must still be stalling, or at least that what Sakura had figured the stop at the flower shop had been considering Ino normally didn't have to stop at her family's store to make one bouquet and then leave.
Her thoughts drifted elsewhere when she recognized the familiar roads that Ino was leading her down. How could she not recognize the same twists and turns that another blonde-haired ninja dragged her along almost every other day?
She let out an irritated groan. "What is it? You're forehead too heavy for you to carry around anymore?" Ino teased as she continued to lead Sakura toward their destination.
"Ichiraku?" was Sakura's reply. She tried hard to keep her voice even and void of her obvious irritation, though judging by Ino's hurt expression she had failed to do so.
"How did you find out?!" Ino whined, setting her pink lips into a cute pout. Sakura was about to tell the blonde kunoichi how she had deduced that she was taking her to Ichiraku ramen stand when said blonde suddenly stopped waiting for the pink-haired girl before her to answer her question and began to sprout out a few of her own theories. "Did Chouji give it away? He almost told you everything back at flower shop. OH! I could kill him for almost blabbing! Did someone tell you? I'll bet it was Naruto. That boy can't keep a secret. Maybe you saw people waiting there before I picked you up. Shikamaru's so lazy. I bet he slept there over night so he wouldn't have to get up and go through the trouble of walking ther—"
"Ino!" Sakura shouted to interrupt her friend's long rant. She momentarily wondered if the blonde had somehow figured out a new jutsu that would allow her to stop breathing, since the pink-haired ninja was certain that Ino had not stopped once to breathe during that whole speech. "No one told me. I would recognize the way to Ichiraku in my sleep. Like how you probably could locate any barbeque shop in town."
"… Oh." Ino said a little stunned. Sakura figured she had forgotten that Ichiraku was Naruto's favorite spot (though she was unsure how anyone could forget such a thing when Naruto spent most of his free time at the ramen stand). "Well everyone's already there, so just suck it up."
Before Sakura could protest to the blonde's retort, she was once again pulled by her small wrist toward the familiar ramen stand. She kept most of her protest to herself, knowing that nothing she could say or do would sway Ino's determination away from taking her to Ichiraku. But she still kept her irritation deep in her mind, always welcoming a distraction from thoughts of her dream peaking through her will power and resurfacing into her brain. She reminded herself to hit Naruto for invading her dreams and asking such ridiculous questions.
But was it really ridiculous?
Sakura's emerald orbs shot wide open when that thought crossed her mind momentarily. Where had that stupid question come from? Anyone in Konohagakure could tell you that Sakura had been in love with Sasuke since before the two of them had even entered in the academy. He had been her first love. He was the first boy that she had cried over. If that was not love, then Sakura was not sure she knew what love was.
These stupid questions must have started because she had not been around the raven-haired boy in such a long time. That was it. When (or most likely if) Sasuke came back, those feelings would start up again. Everything would go back to normal. And she would still be in love with Sasuke.
Right?
Her thoughts were once again interrupted by Ino as the blonde tugged a little harder on her wrist, signaling to the distracted kunoichi in her grasp that they were nearing their destination. "Still with me, Sakura?" Ino asked with a mocking smile. "Looked like you got lost in your big head for a second there."
"Funny." Sakura muttered.
"Well cheer up because we're here."
Ino shouted as she pushed the pink-haired girl through the short hanging drapes that displayed the ramen stand's only too familiar name. Once Sakura was complete inside the small stand she saw her friends turn toward her shout "Happy birthdays" at her. Her green eyes were wide with surprise, but soon softened as she stared at the happy and familiar faces. This is the moment that always made Ino's sad attempts at distracting her worthwhile: being surrounded by the many people she held dear to her heart.
A warm smile graced her pretty face as she glance around the small food stand. Naruto stood out to her right away (anyone in that bright of orange would in an instance). He smiled brightly back at the pink-haired kunoichi, but his attention was soon directed away when a steaming bowl of ramen was place in front of him (miso ramen, Sakura thought). Her gaze wander over to the blonde's right and saw the members of team Kurenai there as well, talking amongst themselves. Or should Sakura say it was mostly Kiba talking enough for all three of them, since Shino only like to add to the conversation every now and then and Hinata was too preoccupied with stealing glances at Naruto.
See. There was a perfect example of what Sakura had been thinking about moments before. Naruto had left for almost three years and Hinata's feelings for him never once faltered. Thinking about that, Sakura felt somewhat guilty for the fact that she was now rethinking her feelings toward Sasuke. Somehow instead of making her feel better, comparing her feelings for Sasuke to Hinata's feelings for Naruto made her feel worse.
She shook her head and then led Ino over to the two empty seats between Naruto and Shikamaru, who was lazily talking to Chouji beside him. Ino had been right. It did sort of look like Shikamaru had been sitting at that very same stool for quite some time, being too lazy to walk passed the stand and then have to come back.
"Happy birthday, Sakura-chan." Naruto said after he finished swallowing a mouthful of ramen, his mouth forming his signature toothy grin that Sakura had become so accustomed to over years.
She could feel herself wanting to smile along with the blonde shinobi. But that was the power of Naruto's smiles: they could somehow always make you smile and believe in him even if there seemed like there was nothing in world left to smile about.
Sakura never got tired of those smiles.
"Thank you, Naruto." She answered back feeling her cheeks start to heat up slightly. It must be all the steam from the ramen around her. "Couldn't you even wait for me to get here before you started to dig in?" Sakura half scolded the blonde as she tried to force her smile away.
"But I was so hungry." Naruto tried to explain. "I got here early to make sure I wasn't late and only Shikamaru was here with me." Sakura laughed, finally getting proof that Ino knew her teammates a little too well. "And it was too hard trying to keep up a conversation with him and that would have been the only thing to distract me from my hunger." Sakura laughed at the blonde's whining. Even in the many years that they had been apart, Naruto had refused to change for the most part.
"I'm terribly sorry for being late!" another familiar voice called from behind the small group of people sitting inside Ichiraku. Sakura whipped her head around to stare at the owner of voice and smiled when she saw yet another familiar face. Rock Lee.
"Lee-san." Sakura said with a small smile. "I didn't know you were coming too."
"How could I not?" Lee said, his voice taking on a dramatic tone and Sakura tried not to laugh knowing full well that Lee was always passionate about everything and that all emotion he put in his voice was honest and not a joke. "A birthday is such a special occasion and in your young age it is a symbol of your springtime of youth! And to miss this special occasion, I would not be able to forgive myself!"
"It's okay, Lee-san. Really." Sakura said, trying to calm the green-clad boy down to a manageable level of enthusiasm. "So what kept you up? Normally you're early for everything."
"I was caught up in training with Gai-sensei and so I had to rush back home in order to pick up your birthday present." Lee said while his bandaged hand began to reach into the pouch that was wrapped around his leg. Once again, Sakura felt her cheeks heat up, but this time she knew she could not blame it on the steam from the ramen. Especially since she also felt embarrassment welding up in the pit of her stomach. She knew that her friends were staring at her and Lee. She could feel their gazes on her and that only made the blush that had settled on her cheeks increase in its intensity.
"Lee-san. R-Really, you didn't have to get me anything." She stammered to speak as she waved her hands in front of her in protest, but Lee seemed to have ignored her completely and placed a small rectangular box in one of her hands.
"But I wanted to get you something." Lee said so innocently. It made Sakura feel as if she could not live with herself if she tried to refuse the boy's present a second time.
With a sigh, she looked down at the small black box that was placed in her hand. It had a green ribbon wrapped around it and for some reason Sakura felt it just suited Lee to have some form of green on his present. She was foolish to think otherwise. Slowly she pulled the ribbon loose and set it down of the table behind her after it was completely off. When she finally summoned the courage to open the box, she let out a small gasp, which she saw from her peripheral vision made a bright smile pop onto Lee's features.
Her green eyes gazed over a set of the most beautiful hair sticks she had ever seen in her life. The bulk of the stick were a polished silver metal which led up to the ends of the stick which were twisted to look like the branch of a cherry blossom tree, complete with small pink gems to represent the beautiful flowers that adorned the trees in the spring.
"L-Lee-san." She practically whispered. She just barely heard Ino snickering from the seat next to her, but she chose to ignore her friend and her current thoughts, which probably included something about how now she and Lee would be "eye-raping" each other when they thought no one was looking. "Thank you." Sakura gave the raven-haired teen a warm smile as she glanced up at the much taller boy.
To her left, she could not help but notice the dejected look that Naruto wore. His blue eyes kept drifting in between his hands that rested in his lap and the beautiful accessories in Sakura's hand. His tan fingers intertwined in a nervous fashion as the blonde tried his hardest to avoid directly looking into the pink-haired ninja's face. Sakura, unsure of what he friend's bizarre action meant, turned her attention back to the beautiful set of hair sticks, since they seemed like the only thing currently in the ramen stand that did not have eyes boring into her skull.
Her pale fingers glided gently across the smooth metal as she gathered the will to finally speak up.
"I'm so glad that you like them." Lee said with an evident blush on his cheeks. "I was going to get you a green jump suit, like my own, with cherry blossom decorating it, but TenTen told me that would prefer something like this."
The pink-haired girl was certain that the blonde-haired kunoichi beside her was going to die if she were to hold back the almost painful (from the sounds of it) fits of laughter any longer. There were a few other snickers that were added along with Ino's after that comment, but Sakura paid them no mind.
She was also trying to hold back the laughter and shame as well.
"…" Sakura's smiled vanished in an instant and a shiver ran down her spine at the mere thought of the jumpsuit that Lee had described. She made a mental note to herself to personally thank TenTen vigorously for saving her the embarrassment of accepting a present like that. "Erm… Lee-san." She tried to say, but her tongue was rendered immobile by the mere thought of that atrocious "gift."
"I actually brought it with me just in case TenTen was wrong—" Lee started to say before Sakura profusely refused excepting more than one gift from the green-obsessed raven.
Eventually the commotion that Lee and his alternative gift had caused settle down the small group of people eventually stopped focusing completely on the pink-haired kunoichi and settled into their own conversations amongst one another. Sakura was thankful once the initial attention died down. She could live without being in the spotlight every second of her life. She definitely did not see what was so appealing about having everyone acknowledge you, like Naruto so often said he wanted.
Naruto…
'Shit.' Sakura thought as she ran her pale fingers through her long pink bangs. She had forgotten about him in all the commotion cause by Lee. She had wondered if the blonde was feeling all right or if her eyes had been playing tricks on her when she saw that hurt look on his face.
She turned her head slightly, being sure to be inconspicuous about the small movement, so that her emerald orbs could catch a glimpse of the boy sitting beside her. Luckily, Naruto's attention was currently on talking with Kiba and Shino (whilst Hinata blushed and hide mostly behind Shino, stealing glances over at the blonde every now and then). She smiled when she noticed the blonde shinobi laughing and talking animatedly with the brunette dog lover, hoping that whatever had brought that depressed look to his face was far away from his mind now.
Sakura definitely knew that she preferred Naruto with a smile. Not that she didn't enjoy his face when he was grimacing at things that he did not enjoy or when he would whine and pout if things did not go his way. She even enjoyed those rare occasion when his eyes would bug out when he got very angry or frighten: those expression were just priceless.
But above all those, Naruto's smile outranked them all.
Thinking about the smile that she often say her friend wearing, a warm smile found its way to Sakura's pink lips and momentarily made the young kunoichi forget about trying to secretly glance over at her blonde friend.
"What's that smile for, Sakura?" Ino asked as she leaned her small body closer to the pink-haired ninja, a mocking grin playing at her painted lips. "See something you like?"
Red flooded Sakura's cheeks when she realized that the girl beside her had witnessed her staring at her friend and teammate. She immediately turned around to face the blonde-haired girl, willing her red cheeks to lessen in their intensity, and scowled at the grin that refused to leave Ino's lips. "Not everyone is as boy-crazy as you, Ino." Sakura practically growled at the other girl.
"Defensive much?" the blonde chirred back almost instantly. "Well, I don't blame you for staring. I mean, Naruto sure has changed over the years. If you had liked him before he left I would have called you crazy, but now… Naruto could almost be called handsome!"
"I don't like him like that, Ino. Naruto is just my friend." Sakura grit her teeth as she spoke, hoping that the blonde-haired girl would lower her voice since the topic of their discussion was sitting right next to them. The last thing she wanted was for Naruto to overhear Ino talking about hot he's gotten over the years. Like the boy's ego was not already over inflated from his own self image.
Ino rolled her pale blue eyes at her friend's reply. "Yeah, whatever. I'm just glad that you're finally getting over Sasuke. You needed to get a new crush desperately."
"…" Sakura turned to Ino, her emerald orbs narrowed and her cheeks flaming a bright red. "Maybe… I'm not." She uttered too softly for the blonde too hear above the murmurs that filled the small ramen stand.
Ino's gaze drifted over to the blonde-haired boy sitting to Sakura's right and seemed to be contemplating something to herself. "Yeah. I can see it now. You two would look good together." The blonde kunoichi said with a smile.
"Ino." Sakura grumbled as she tried to hide her red face by letting her neck sink into her shoulders.
"Yo." A lazy voice called from the entrance of the stand. Yet another voice that Sakura would never be able to forget in her life time.
The voice of her teacher.
"I'm sorry for being late. I got lost."
"LIAR!" both Sakura and Naruto yelled out in unison. Sakura gasped after she realized what she had done and turned to Ino, who seemed very pleased with what she had just seen wore the appropriate expression to show her amusement.
"Yup. You two are perfect for each other." Ino sneered with a wide grin plastered on her pale face. The blonde looked so please with herself that Sakura could not help but scowl to the point on setting her face in that expression permanently.
"Just shut it."
"It's not nice to call you sensei a liar." Kakashi said as his visible eyes curved up happily as he went through their usual routine.
"But it's perfectly fine to call you one when you are!" Naruto retorted back with a laugh. The silver-haired Jounin joined in with the blonde on the laugh for a second or two and then let the gaze of his single eye wander over to the pink-haired shinobi sitting right beside the loud orange-clad boy. His mask crinkled ever so slightly as his hidden lips formed a small smile as he looked as his former student.
"Ah, Sakura. Happy birthday." He said casually.
"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei." The pink-haired girl answered back to the silver-haired man. "You didn't have to come if you were busy."
"It was no trouble at all. It's the least I could do for one of my old students." Kakashi's eye curved happily once again as he leaned his body slightly forward so that he was more at eye level with the pink-haired kunoichi.
"Kakashi-sensei." Ino chirped up from beside Sakura. Emerald orbs wandered over to the energetic blonde girl with a suspicious glare, but was not given the chance to voice her concerns for Ino immediately continued on with her speech. "Don't you think that Sakura and Naruto would look good together?"
Sakura's mouth hung open as her cheeks burst into a vibrant shade of red when her friend blurted out such a bold question to her ex-teacher of all people. She just prayed that Kakashi's inner pervert would not be awakened by the blonde kunoichi's big mouth. She was positive that by the end of the night she would end up killing her best friend "accidentally" or at the very least injuring her in some way. Thankfully, Kakashi reply pulled Sakura from her thoughts of bloodlust before Ino suffered any form of harm.
"Well of course they look good together." came the silver-haired shinobi's reply. "They're teammates after all. They need to fit together in order to work in the most efficient manner."
A look that just screamed "Thank you" was written all over the pink-haired girl face as she looked up at her old teacher's mostly hidden face. She could have not asked for a better present from the older man even if she had asked for one from him. Kakashi noticed her merciful expression and let his visible eye curve up happily once again, giving her a secret smile that Ino seemed to have missed (possibly because she did not understand Kakashi gestures as well as Sakura did).
Ino puffed out her cheeks as she tried to hold back her disappointment. She turned away from the older man, dropping the topic (hopefully) for the rest of the night before she slowly jumped off her stool and walked over to her own teammates to turn her attention to people whom would agree with her opinion or just be too lazy to argue with her about it.
"Thank you." Sakura whispered to the silver-haired man standing before her.
"No problem." Kakashi said as he waved his hand, dismissing her gratitude. He then took the seat that Ino had previously occupied so that he could converse better with his ex-student instead of awkwardly standing in the entrance to the ramen stand. "Has she been going on about that topic for very long?" he asked as his voice regained his usual lazy tone.
"Not really. Just ever since I…" Sakura cut off her sentence there, realizing that she almost confessed to the older man that she had been staring at Naruto earlier that day. "Ever since we got here, really." She recovered quickly and hoped that her old teacher would not notice her little slip up. Though if she knew the silver-haired Jounin as well as she thought she did, the older man was not fooled by her lie. But maybe if Sakura was lucky, Kakashi would not bring attention to her lie and let her think that she had gotten away with it. Though either way, her ex-teacher knew something was up and he would find out what was going on in his own secretive way sooner or later.
"Wish I had gotten here sooner then." He replied back finally. "Maybe I could have spared you a few minutes of that."
"It's fine. Ino's just relationship crazy these days." Sakura answered back, her voice more calm and even now that she did not have to lie to the silver-haired man. "She thinks that everyone is crushing on somebody else. Like everyone's hormones are as bad as her own." Sakura laughed and she heard the older man beside her give a short chuckle as well.
"Well, then her theories had no real evidence then. Ino's just seeing what she wants to see, right?"
"… Right." Sakura reluctantly replied back as she avoided eye contact with the other shinobi beside her, feeling as if the older man was beginning to break down the real problem in his special way already. She breathed out a heavy sigh and prepared herself for the stream of questions and answers that would more than likely pass between herself and her old teacher.
"Are you sure that Ino's thinking has no basis?"
"…" Once again Sakura remained quite. It was the same sort of awkward silence that she remembered occurred in her dream, even though the question had changed slightly. Instead of looking her old teacher in the eye, she let her gaze move toward her right and stared at the blonde-haired boy beside her from the corners of her emerald orbs. Her gaze lingered for a moment before her head returned to face forward and she let out another soft sigh. "No. I'm not sure."
Kakashi's gaze softened as he looked down at the pink-haired girl beside him. He quickly rose from his seat and waited until Sakura noticed that he was no longer sitting beside her to speak. "Come walk with me." He said causally before he began to leave the ramen stand with Sakura close at his heal. The pink-haired kunoichi felt guilty for leaving behind her friends, but she knew that she needed to finally talk to someone about what was happening between herself and Naruto and where Sasuke fight into all of this. And she felt that if Kakashi could force himself to be mature for ten minutes, then he would be the best person for the job.
The two of them waited until they were at least a good five meters away from Ichiraku before either of them started to talk again.
"So… what happened?" Kakashi asked, his single eye focused on the scenery in front of him since it was still quite early in the day and the village of Konohagakure was quite beautiful when fully light up by the sun's rays.
"Nothing much." Sakura answered truthfully. "I just… had this dream about a conversation that Naruto and I had. Then it something happened in my dream that didn't happen in real life."
"Which was?" Kakashi asked, trying to get more out of the young girl at his side.
"… He asked me if I was still in love with Sasuke-kun." Her voice was so soft that she thought Kakashi might not have heard her for second. The long silence that lasted between the two of them did nothing to ease her fears of having to repeat herself and to say something so embarrassing a second time.
But finally the silver-haired man spoke up and relieved her of some of her anxiety. "… And what was your answer in the dream?"
"I didn't answer him." She answered as she played with a strand of her pink hair. It was really getting long. She had not had her hair at this length for quite some time. "I just… stopped talking. Like I couldn't answer him. And I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day."
"Do you think that you're still in love with Sasuke?" Kakashi asked, hoping that taking this conversation in a different direction would lead the young kunoichi to an answer to her problems sooner.
"Yes. I mean, I have to be. I've worked so hard to get stronger so that I could help Naruto bring Sasuke back. So I wouldn't have to watch him leave. So I could have an active part in bringing him back."
"Because you and Naruto want him back home." Kakashi confirmed.
"Yes. I promised Naruto that I would help him. Because that day when he came back from trying so hard to bring him back and he was lying there in the hospital bed looking so crushed for breaking a promise to be.. I knew I never wanted to see him so hurt and defeated ever again. Because I…" Sakura cut herself off before she could finish her last sentence as her feet stopped dead in their tracks, causing the silver-haired shinobi beside her to stop walking as well. Kakashi had done it all right. The sly man had even made Sakura figure out things all on her own.
Her teacher was just as good as ever.
"I think I have my answer. Don't I, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura's green eyes glanced up at her old teacher and gave the older man a warm smile, which was returned with a smile that Sakura could tell was just as warm even if it was hidden by a mask.
"I knew you would figure things out eventually." The older man replied back, his voice soft and warm that he was still able to teach the young pink-haired girl something even though she was no longer his student.
"I guess I just thought Sasuke was still the most important person in my life because I was trying to get him to come home, but… somehow, Naruto wormed his way into the picture." Sakura chuckled slightly thinking about how her feeling for the blonde had completely turned around in just a few short years. She could have never guessed that the annoying little brat who could not shut up about becoming Hokage one day would turn into the very person who inspired her to make more of herself by constantly pushing himself to be more than anyone ever thought he could be.
Kakashi gave one last warm glance down at the young girl, before he averted his gaze and focused on a blue jay that had just landed on the top of a nearby rooftop. "I should be going. I only had time to stop by really."
"Well, I'm glad that you took the time to stop by." Sakura said with a bright smile at her former teacher. "I'll see you around, Kakashi-sensei." The silver-haired man waved goodbye to the younger girl and then took off down the road.
Sakura waited until she could no longer see the Jounin before she turned around and started to sprint down the road, intent on making her way back to Ichiraku as fast as her skinny legs could carry her. When she entered back into the ramen stand she noticed that all of her friends were still there, still enjoying themselves in the company of friends and teammates. She walked over to her original seat and decided to finally order something, since she had not eaten since before Ino had picked the pink-haired shinobi up at her house that morning. Her order made Naruto aware of her return and the blonde stopped paying attention to Kiba and turned his head to look over at his teammate.
"Where did you go, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked with a cute questioning expression on his tanned face.
"I just saw Kakashi-sensei off. He had to leave early." A small smile appeared on her lips as she turned her gaze to meet Naruto's.
"He left already?" Naruto half whined. "What a guy! Arrives late and leaves early." Naruto crossed his arms across his chest and huffed out in his irritation. Sakura giggled at his childish reactions.
"He means well." She said with a knowing smile. The blonde shinobi gave her another questioning glance but shrugged and decided not to push the matter any further, considering he was already confused.
Naruto face suddenly lit up, almost as if he had suddenly remembered something, and then started to reach into his pocket to pull out a small black box. His blue eyes looked down nervously at the small package, his finger lightly gracing over the edges before he finally cleared his throat, gaining the attention of the pink-haired girl to his left. "Ah… I, um. I got something for you, Sakura-chan." He said, while looking any else besides the kunoichi beside him.
"Really? You didn't have to."
"…" Naruto paused for a second and handed the pink-haired ninja the small box. "It's not as nice as Lee's gift but…" he stopped talking, hoping that he was not setting up some sort of expectations in Sakura's mind about the present.
Sakura rolled her eyes and laughed at Naruto's nervous gestures. She opened up the box and looked down at the small pink decorative comb. Sakura smiled as her emerald eyes wandered over every inch of the small comb, taking it the details one by one. The top of the comb kind of looked like pink flowers and she suddenly realized why Naruto had been upset by Lee's gift.
It reminded him of his own gift.
"I love it, Naruto." She replied back with a big smile.
"You don't have to say that. I know Lee's gift was better." Naruto continued to grumble and looked away from Sakura as his cheek light up to a shade of bright red. Once again Sakura could help but laugh at Naruto's actions, but quickly willed herself to stop so that she could thank the boy properly instead of laughing at him.
She leaned in closer to the boy's sun-kissed cheek and gave it a small peck before she moved away from the blonde once again and gave him the brightest smile she could muster. "I wasn't lying."
Naruto's shocked expression made Sakura burst into another fit of giggles that she could not stop no matter how hard she will herself to sober up.
Even if she had spent most of the day laughing at Naruto, she could not have asked for a better birthday. Because she finally knew exactly what she wanted.
She just needed to think about it.
An alternate title to this would be "Sakura get Actions from Practically Everyone in Konohagakure" XD ha, ha. And I think this is the straightest thing I've ever written. … And that's very sad XD!