Tea Party. Part 1

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I watched them link their hands and dance.

And my shattered heart imploded.

I can't recall exactly when this story began, but I do seem to recall a mention of watered-down tea, childish promises and skinned knees. The fact of the matter is, this story has always existed, and I doubt it will ever end since life happens and does not stop to wait for you. I guess you could say the premise of this story began while I was at the young age of six, alone, again, in my back yard, playing with my only friends: my raggedy, dirty, over-loved, stuffed animals. They always smiled and never spoke, good thing since everyone that spoke to me criticized and condemned. I was contently arranging a glorious tea-party to celebrate the nice summer day when I first met him. Sasuke.

My fist glimpse of my Adonis was of him poking his spiky-haired head through the broken-down fence that separated our two houses. I thought it was an incredibly odd thing to be doing, since the fence was liable to collapse at any given moment, and also I could hear other children playing out on the street.

Why wasn't this boy out there with them….?

I decided to ignore him, and prayed that he would leave me alone after he had gotten a good look at the freak that was me. I nervously slid my way between his line of sight and my over-stuffed friends, hoping he wouldn't inflict mass carnage and slaughter on them. I gulped nervously as I still felt his presence behind me. My breath began to quicken and I felt the icky sense of perspiration beginning to form.

Why wasn't he leaving?!

Crack. My eyes widened, my breathing stopped and I swear to god so did my heart. His soft footsteps rang like gunshots through my hyper-alert body and I shuddered in anticipation for the inevitable onslaught of verbal torture that I had endured so many times before. The thought that this strange little boy would be different did not even cross my mind. I closed my eyes and prepared myself.

"What 'cha doin'..?"

My eyes almost bugged out of my head from the shock. The little dark-haired boy's face was right in front of mine when my eyes flew open. I stumbled backwards in shock and fell directly onto my butt. A snicker escaped his lips and his mouth turned itself into a pleasant smile.

"You know, if you sit on the ground you're gonna get your dress dirty."

I gasped as he held out his small little hand towards me. Gingerly, I grasped his hand and he gently pulled my up to my feet.

"So, what's your name? I'm Sasuke!" the boy chirped at me. I was still in shock that someone was being nice to me that my reply came out kind of garbled.

"S-s-sak- ura"

"Nice you meet you S-s-sak-ura." I watched the mystery boy giggled to himself, as if divulging in a secret joke to himself. My eyebrows creased together in suspicion. I managed to splutter out a logical sentence.

"Um… what are you doing in my backyard?"

The boy's eyes widened for a fraction of a second and he tilted his head, smiling all the while.

"To see you of course! I didn't really like the other kids, and you looked like you were having fun-". He glanced around me to look at my stuffed friends' tea party.

"-and I've always liked tea!" he said while flitting his eyes back to mine. I felt the blush creeping across my face as his dark eyes looked into mine. I almost let out another gasp as he sat himself down on an empty chair.

"So what kind of tea were you guys havin'?" he said, while glancing back up at me. I stared at my feet, too embarrassed to look him in the eyes. This was the first time I had had a real person to share my tea with and not a fluffy animal. I slowly turned my gaze up to the dark-haired boy sitting at the tiny table. I took a slow breath in and struggled to get my sentence out.

"Um...Well, we were having green tea, but my…mom watered it down, so you probably won't want any…" My eyes widened perceptibly as his smile grew even wider (if that was at all possible).

"That's ok, I'm just glad I can share it with a friend!!"

My face flushed an even darker shade of crimson. He gestured me to sit down and I made my way to my chair. We sat there for what seemed like hours, talking about the neighbourhood, other kids, tea and my…issues with the other children. I remember his frown when I told him of the intense bullying I had gone through when my parents had signed me up for school. His eyes seemed to darken and his face wrinkled up into a looked of disgust. At first I panicked, thinking he didn't like me anymore, after I had told him, but he quieted my fears.

"Well, those stupid kids don't know what they're missing out on. And the teas good too!"

I smiled at him and he smiled back, both enjoying the moment of friendship.

"Well" he proclaimed, puffing out his small chest, "if anyone dares bully you while I'm around, I'm gonna give them one or two things to think about!!!" I giggled at his fierce face and he deflated, hearing my giggle.

"I'm serious, you know!!!"

I smiled at him, thanking him for his kindness. Soon we heard his mother calling him from his house and he sat up at the sound of his name. He got up to leave, but he turned around and gave me one final smile.

"I mean what I said, friends forever?"

I glanced at his outstretched pinkie finger and gently placed my finger in his. We both smiled at each other, and then he was gone, disappearing through the fence. I listened to his mother beginning a rant about how worried she was about him and I smiled to myself.

Maybe life isn't that bad after all!

For years after that, he kept his promise, fighting of my many bullies and ensuring I always made it home safe. Every snickering comment would be met with an equally degrading retort and soon the bullies learnt to stay away from me. He would sometimes sneak over to my house after his parents had had a particular bad fight and we would lie on my roof, gazing at the stars, wondering what was really out there and if there was a place for us. I don't think either of us forgot those years, the innocent, hazy days of childhood and childish friendship.

But as they say, all good things come to an end.

The day he told me he was moving was the day my heart broke. We were both twelve, on the fringes of adolescence and near the time when we started realizing that I was a girl and he was a boy. He said something about his parents needing time apart, I was still recovering from the shock, and all I saw was his lips moving. He told me it would only be temporary and he would be back soon to take care of me. I smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek. As I lowered myself from my toes, I saw his face flush in embarrassment. He stood there awkwardly for a moment before speaking

"I guess this means goodbye?"

"Never say goodbye, because goodbye means going away and going away means forgetting. Think of it as…being temporarily incapable of being a phsyical presence in my life."

He smiled

"Thank you, Sakura"

He turned, making his way back through the fence, and I watched with tears streaming down my face, realizing that I may never see him again.

I never forgot.

The next few year of my life went by slowly, waiting for his return. I made a new friend in his place, Ino. She was everything I desired to be and could never be. She was as good as a friend as one could hope for, fiercely loyal, extroverted and kind. I often wondered how I deserved such a good friend, as she tolerated my painful shyness and introversion. We spent many nights giggling to ourselves, chowing down on various goodies, gossiping and talking about cute boys. As we grew older, it became painfully obvious how different we were. She was beautiful, smart and a natural people person. Although I wasn't ugly, I was relatively plain, except for my cursed hair. It wasn't like I was stupid either, achieving top marks in all my subjects. But my social skills, well, they weren't in the gutter, they had trickled down to the sewer. At the many parties she would drag me too, she would usually end up completely smashed and sucking face with some random she had just met. I would sigh, collect our things and drag her drunk-ass back home where she would pass out.

She told me it never occurred to her I was cramping her style, in fact whenever I mentioned it, she would smile at me, pat me on the head and say something witty like,

"Friends don't let friends become the crazy cat lady!"

She tried to teach me that I was unique, and not a freak like many of the girls at our school had proclaimed. She told me to take pride in my looks, my cotton-candy coloured hair and my emerald eyes, since there was quite probably no one else on the planet with those features. I would always blush when she complimented me, since no one else bothered to. I truly believed that there was nothing that could separate our friendship and she would never leave me like Sasuke had. Memories of him and me began to fade in the wake of the new ones me and Ino were making together.

But as the sage Charlie brown once wisely stated, "I think I'm afarid to be happy because whenever I get too happy, something bad happens".

Life was still going swimmingly and I was almost at the end of my awkward teenage years when all the chaos began.

I was just finishing my sihft at the local café when Ino's cheery face popped up on my phone and "Let's get this party started" began to shriek at me. I smiled and reached for my phone, knowing it was probably to drag me off to another party that a friend of a friends of a friend of hers was hosting.

How wrong I was.

Ino voice immediately cracked into my ear before I even had a chance to utter a greeting.

"Oh. My. God. I think I'm in love Sakura!!!!"

I sighed to myself, having heard this so many times before, only to hear how much she hated the poor boy a week later. I smirked and tried to keep my voice as nice as possible without letting any sarcasm slip through.

"Ah, and who is this darling that has captured your heart?"

"Well, I have to tell you the story first-" I grimaced in anticipation for the onslaught of fan-girlish giggles."-He's one of Naruto's friends, you know the crazy blond in my drama course, and this friend of his had just moved here. Anyway, Naruto invited me to hang out and asked if I would mind if he brought a friend. He said that his friend was a bit of a shut-in and he was trying to get him to stop moping around and meet some girls. Or course I was expecting some nerdy dork, but I accepted anyway and off we went to hang out. Naruto called his friend to meet us and when we all finally met up, I swear to god I went into cardiac arrest. His friend was gorgeous!!! Like all serious and hot and I think my jaw must have dropped to the floor when I saw him. He is seriously the embodiment of Adonis or something!!!"

I chuckled to myself at Ino display of intelligence, "You know who Adonis is, I'm impressed Ino!"

"Ha Ha Ha, Ms. Haruno. You're just jealous I'm out with such a hottie!!" her flat voice rang into my ears yet again.

"You got me. So does this sex god have a name? "

"Yes, and even his name is sexy! Guess!!!"

I sighed at her childish antics and began strolling towards the bus stop, hoping to catch the bus before it left.

"Ino, just tell me already!"

"AW!-", I could practically hear the pout. "Fine Ms. Party pooper, it's Sasuke!"

My heart stopped and I dropped my phone as if it had just shocked me.

Ino was currently out with Sasuke.

SasUke.

SASUKE!!!

I felt the pricks of tears making their way to my eyes. Why hadn't he tried to contact me!? Hastily, I picked up my phone and the people waiting at the bus stop gave me a concerned look, which only made me feel worse.

"Um, Ino, I gotta go, call me later! Ok? Bye!!"

"Wait, Sakura! Are you-"

I snapped my phone shut and desperately wanted to go home and curl up into a small ball of self-pity. Why hadn't he tried to call me, see me, anything!!! Was I not worth the effort, had he finally realized what a freak I was? Millions of questions swirled around inside my head and I began to feel numb. After I made my way to my house, which as usual, was empty, and I made my way to my room and slammed the door. I stumbled over to my secret stash of chocolate and immediately began ripping into the family-sized bars as I fell back onto my bed. Tears streamed unchecked down my face and I fell further into my state of hysteria and depression.

Sasuke had forgotten about me.

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Alright, so I probably should be updating Genesis, but this popped into my head instead

Stay tuned for the next chappie of this two-shot!

And since you're already at the bottom of the page, why not review! It would be greatly appreciated!!