Sasuke's grip on the steering wheel was iron-tight as he merged onto the freeway.
It was a three-and-a-half hour drive back to Oto, where he lived, which gave him three-and-a-half hours to reflect on what a stupid fucking idiot he was.
Signing a sports scholarship with Konoha University seemed like such a good idea at the time. It was a fine school, and all of his family members had attended it before him. And in this day and age, and this uncertain economy, you simply don't turn your nose up at a free education.
He hadn't counted, however, on having such a hard time finding a place to live.
One of the unfortunate things about not having any parents meant that he had to figure out a lot of things for himself. Finding college housing was one of those things, since Sasuke hadn't counted on Konoha not having enough rooms for everyone.
Shady Leaf Village Apartment Suites was pretty much a last-ditch resort. He'd had problems all over the city trying to find somewhere he could stay.
This, however, was a problem he could never have predicted.
In the form of a bitchy, temperamental, hysterical female, about whom he knew next to nothing, but with whom he would now be living for an entire year.
Girls were nothing but trouble. He'd learned that early on. And his new roommate, a short, thin harpy with bright pink hair, already looked to be more trouble than she was worth.
The fact that she was a complete knockout only added to his consternation.
How was he supposed to live in such close quarters with someone that five-alarm hot?
Just because he avoided girls didn't mean he wasn't attracted to them. And even if this Sakura Haruno seemed like a certifiable psychopath, he couldn't deny her beauty.
The whole situation was a nightmare. His already foul mood degenerating even further, he swung over into the left lane without looking, cutting the driver behind him off, but he didn't care. If he was having such a shit day, why should anyone else be in a good mood?
Sasuke planned on putting off moving in his things until the very end of August, but the more he thought about it, the less he liked that idea. Giving his psychotic female roommate all these days of uninterrupted freedom around their apartment (he shuddered at having to call it that) seemed stupid even by his standards. With his luck, she'd claim the better bathroom and bedroom, and booby-trap the rest of the place.
So he packed up his things with the help of his best friend, a psychopath named Naruto, who would be attending Konoha University but had the sense to make sure he had a dorm first, and the pair of them headed down to Shady Leaf Village together that same weekend.
"Sweet digs, jerk!" Naruto whistled, as they headed down the hallway to C-17 with boxes in their arms. "If I knew you were gonna get a place like this, I'd've roomed with you instead of getting that single on campus!"
"Could've saved me a lot of trouble," Sasuke mumbled; he still hadn't divulged the identity of his roommate to anyone, least of all his prying best friend. He paused outside C-17 and rummaged in his pockets, balancing the cardboard box full of his things on one hip. He found the key and with a bit of maneuvering, unlocked the door.
A high-pitched scream nearly knocked him off his feet, and he dropped the box he was holding directly onto his foot. His vision went white as pain ripped through him, and he rounded on the screamer with venom in his blood.
"What the FUCK are you screaming about?" he demanded of Sakura, who was clutching her chest and fanning herself, looking traumatized.
"I thought you were a burglar!" she gasped.
"I LIVE here, you fucking idiot!" he snapped.
The fear abruptly gone from her face, boiling anger took its place as she retorted, "I didn't know it was YOU, asshole!"
"How 'bout the fact that I had a key? That ring any bells for you?"
"Hey, what's goin' on, teme?" Naruto asked, following him inside the apartment. "Who are you yelli-well, HELLO THERE, PINKY!"
Sasuke snorted at Naruto's instant attraction to his infuriating roommate, but something unpleasant coursed through his stomach at the same time. How dare he find Sakura attractive. He was supposed to be his best friend, but he'd fallen for a pair of bright green eyes and pouty pink lips and damn to hell the fact that Sakura Haruno was going to be the death of Sasuke!
To his bizarre amusement, however, Sakura's eyes narrowed abruptly at Naruto's nickname for her.
"Who are you?" she asked coldly.
"Naruto Uzumaki at your service, Pinky!" he said, oblivious as he offered her his hand. "Are you Sasuke's girlfriend? If so you're way too pretty for him!"
"I'd sooner be dead," Sasuke muttered, at the precise moment Sakura hissed, "In his dizziest daydreams."
When Naruto continued to look confused at what was happening inside the barely-furnished apartment, Sakura sighed and relaxed somewhat, apparently sensing that Naruto was not harmless, if not criminally stupid.
"I'm Sakura," she introduced herself, taking his hand and shaking it with a smile. "I'm this dickhead's roommate. Unfortunately."
"His roommate?" Naruto gasped, and Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose, battling an imminent migraine. "BASTARD YOU NEVER TOLD ME YOU LANDED SUCH A HOT GIRL TO LIVE WITH!"
"Hey, Forehead, what the hell is going on out there?" a second female voice called, and everyone looked towards Sakura's bedroom to see a tall, blonde girl emerge with a frown on her face.
"IS SHE YOUR ROOMMATE TOO?" Naruto shouted at Sasuke. "THIS BLONDE ANGEL? ARE Y'ALLS HAVING SOME DEPRAVED THREESOME SEX ORGY ARRANGEMENT? IS THIS APARTMENT A DEN OF SIN? IF SO I WANT IN!"
"Shut up you moron," said Sasuke darkly. Sakura seemed to have a greater patience for what was happening, however, and sighed.
"That's my best friend, Ino," she introduced the blonde girl, who was giving obvious elevator eyes to Sasuke and making his stomach turn. "Ino, this is my…ugh…roommate. Sasuke. And this is his friend, Naruto. Now that we all know each other…"
"Well," Ino said, striding towards Sasuke in what he supposed was her best attempt at 'seductive,' but really just made him nauseous, "I'd like to get to know THIS one on a more personal basis. How 'bout it, Sasuke?"
He ignored her and directed his attention to Sakura, who looked amused at his discomfort. "Why are you here?" he demanded.
Her eyes narrowed. "I live here, same as you. I was moving my things into my room."
Sasuke looked around the apartment, and his mood plummeted even further. It appeared that Sakura hadn't waited for his permission to move things into the communal spaces: i.e., the living room and kitchen.
The place was almost sickeningly feminine. A light blue sectional sofa was nestled in the corner of the living room on top of a taupe-colored area rug. The girliest table cloth he'd ever seen was thrown across the sloppily-assembled dining room table in the kitchen, obviously put together by some stupid girl who didn't know what she was doing, and when he opened the cupboards, he found scores of pink coffee mugs, plates, and bowls that made him instantly furious.
He whirled around to face her again and snapped, "Take this girly shit out of here."
"Like hell I will!" she shot back. "This is my space, too!"
"I am not living in an apartment with THAT on the wall!" he snarled, pointing at a framed picture of the Eiffel Tower hanging behind the sofa.
"It's the Eiffel Tower!" Sakura screeched. "It's not girly, it's French!"
"You could make the argument that it's a phallic symbol," Naruto said sagely, examining the portrait in question, and Sasuke literally couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. "And that's why Sasuke has a problem with it. Since, you know, phallic-wise, he's just not as impressive as the Eiffel Tower."
Sakura and Ino immediately burst into giggles, and Sasuke silently promised Naruto a slow, agonizing destruction before retorting stiffly, "This is communal space. You can't decide what goes in here without my permission."
Sakura's face was scarlet, her green eyes flaming with incandescent rage, and Sasuke couldn't help but notice how she seemed to be the type of girl who was at her prettiest when she was angry. And this did not bode well for him AT ALL, considering how he couldn't seem to stop making her angry.
"Your PERMISSION?" she screamed, pointing one accusing finger at him like a malediction. "I don't need your PERMISSION for ANYTHING! You are not my FATHER. You are not my BROTHER. You are DAMN SURE NOT MY BOYFRIEND so I do not answer to you, you fucking cretin."
Sasuke was visited by a sudden desire to grab her by her long pink ponytail and throw her out the open bay window they were arguing in front of, but decided against it, since they were on the first floor and the height wouldn't be enough to kill her. Instead, he forced himself to breathe through his nose and bit out, "We need to compromise."
This seemed to change Sakura's demeanor entirely. The hellish fire shining in her eyes was extinguished immediately, and she nodded with a sweet smile.
"That's fair," she decided. "Compromising is fair, in the communal areas."
Slightly wrongfooted by her sudden mood change, he continued, "Take that lace tablecloth off the table. And put that shit on your bedroom wall." He pointed to the portrait of the Eiffel Tower somewhat spitefully.
Sakura pouted.
"We need to have some art in the living room," she said, putting her hands on her hips. Sasuke's gaze followed them and the back of his neck burned. He had to get over this. For his sanity and Sakura's. "I have a picture of Humphrey Bogart?"
"Fine," he bit out. Anything was better than a girly, frilly picture of the Eiffel Tower, and even he knew that Humphrey Bogart was the world's original badass.
She seemed content with that, and she and Ino disappeared into her bedroom to do God-only-knows-what, thankfully taking the fucking awful table cloth with them. Sasuke exhaled sharply through his nose and prepared himself for the onslaught.
Naruto did not disappoint.
"Well, well, well, Sasuke, you sly dog," his best friend snickered, eyebrows waggling.
"Don't even go there, you dumbass."
"When you told me you had to share the place with a roommate, you neglected to mention that that roommate was a female…"
"Let it go, idiot."
"…and that that female was smoking hot…"
"I'm warning you."
"…and that she had a balcony you could recite Shakespeare from, an ass you could bounce a quarter of off, and-"
"Out. Get the hell out. Get out of my fucking apartment."
Sasuke grabbed his best friend (soon to be not-so-dearly departed) by the back of his neck and steered him towards the door, overcome with frustration.
I haven't moved IN yet, he thought furiously. And already the idiot's smitten with the fucking chick who's trying to ruin my life.
Naruto was laughing as he shook off Sasuke's grip.
"All right, all right!" he surrendered, holding his hands up. "Let's just move your shit in, okay? And I won't bring up the fact that I literally watched your eyes watch her ass when she went into her room."
Sasuke stared around at the still-feminine apartment that was giving him fits, and prayed for the strength not to set the whole fucking place on fire.
Hours passed of exhaustive moving-in procedures. Sasuke eventually found himself holed up in his bedroom, mounting his flat-screen TV on the wall. Naruto was out scouting for a pizza joint in town, and with the girls fucking around in Sakura's room, he found himself enjoying a rare moment of peace on this most auspicious day.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.
He swore under his breath. At least, it had been a peaceful moment.
"What," he growled out.
"It's Sakura," the feminine, slightly-pissed voice replied from the other side of the door.
His entire body tensed and he nearly dropped the television. That little psychopath wasn't coming near his room.
"I'm busy," he ground out in annoyance. "Go away."
"I need your help," she called, ignoring him. "I'm coming in."
"No you're not," he snapped, but she wasn't listening to him. The door flew open and she swept inside in a rush of intoxicating perfume and a thick pink ponytail, hands on her hips. Furious at this point, he forced the TV onto its mount and whirled around to shoot her a filthy look. "What the hell do you want."
She looked irritated, but not with him; in fact, he got the sense that her anger was more self-directed.
"I can't figure out how my bed goes," she mumbled, avoiding his eyes. Sasuke assumed she was the type of girl who could never adequately admit when they were wrong, or confused. Against his will, he was learning things about her.
"What do you want me to do about it," he grumbled. He didn't like this arrangement, alone in his bedroom, alone, with Sakura. Alone. This was dangerous for him, he knew, because while he could freely admit he hated her to his very core, he also found her ridiculously hot.
And being alone in a room with a bed and a hot girl was too much temptation even for him. He turned his back on her with all the intention in the world of straightening his TV when her huff of disgust drew his attention.
"You're serious? I just tell you I need help with manly fix-it-up shit and you ignore it? IS CHIVALRY DEAD I THINK IT MIGHT BE."
"Quiet down, you're too loud," he muttered.
She grabbed his elbow, her fingers small like the rest of her, but her grip was monstrous. Immediately the feeling vanished from his arm as she spun him around to face her.
Slightly shocked at this surprising show of strength, Sasuke gaped at his tiny, maddening roommate who glared right back at him with hellfire in her bright green eyes.
"Are you just incapable of working with tools? Is that it?"
Her words were carefully selected, engineered to elicit a primitive competitive instinct within him, and all men, compelling them to rise to every challenge. He knew all of that, but he had to hand it to Sakura; she really knew what she was doing.
"Fine," he ground out. "If you leave me alone after."
Immediately the nasty, vicious expression on her face was replaced with a dazzling smile that made his stomach tighten.
"Thanks!" she said brightly. "Come on, I know it won't take you long."
With all the reluctance in the world, Sasuke followed Sakura down the hallway to the smaller bedroom with the larger closet. She opened the door and he was overwhelmed with Sakura's bizarre personality, hung from the ceilings and walls.
For a girl with bright pink hair, her taste was relatively tame. He might go so far as to say classy, but that was a stretch, considering how much he loathed her. The posters on her wall were of black-and-white movie stars, and she'd managed to hang a string of silver stars above the disassembled pieces of her bed. There was a dresser, a well-stocked closet, a mountain of shoes, and a full-length mirror next to an enormous TV he was astonished she'd finagled into the apartment.
All in all, it wasn't terrible.
But being in here set his hormones on fire.
He was building something. For a girl. For a smoking hot girl. He was building this smoking hot girl a bed.
The sexual possibilities rushed through his mind fast enough to make him dizzy, and his mood degenerated even further as a result. To avoid any awkward discussion on the thoughts that were flashing like lightning through his head, he grabbed the alan key and the bed legs and got right to work.
Sakura sat down beside him, her legs folded beneath her in a position that looked extremely uncomfortable, but she didn't seem all that bothered by it. She watched him as he worked, which made him anxious; he didn't like severe scrutiny, least of all from someone he was severely scrutinizing.
Her mouth was set in concentration, her eyes taking in his every move, before she replied, "Um, thank you. For helping me with this. I didn't really want to sleep on the floor all year."
Uncomfortable with her unexpected gratitude, he muttered, "Hn," his utility response for all situations he found awkward. Sakura, if bothered by it, didn't say anything.
It was a queen-sized bed, a decent size, especially if she wanted to share it with someone. His neck burned as he pictured how the plush mattress would feel dipped beneath their weight, and he vaguely wondered if this girl he was ogling/loathing had a boyfriend.
He doubted it. He doubted any respectable boyfriend would let her move in with a guy. And if the female population of the world was to be believed, Sasuke was God's gift to women and the hottest thing to grace the earth since the invention of fire and flames. If HE had a girlfriend, he certainly wouldn't want her rooming with a guy like him.
So she had to be single.
Which pissed him off even more.
He finished the bedframe and flipped it rightside-up before reaching for her boxspring and setting it on top. The mattress was last, and he helped her push the bed into the corner.
"Thanks so much!" she said brightly, with that fucking smile like he was her favorite person. Her sudden mood changes were making his head spin.
"Aa," he replied, dusting off his jeans.
With that, he turned to leave (flee) her bedroom, but in the threshold, she stopped him.
"Wait…"
Sasuke paused.
"Um…I know this arrangement isn't…like, ideal, or whatever," she said a bit hesitantly. He glanced back over his shoulder to see her playing awkwardly with the bangs that framed her face, winding pink curls around her finger and letting them spring free again. Vaguely, he wondered if her hair was as soft as it looked.
"Aa."
"But…I think we could make it work. So I'm not saying we need to start splitting an underwear drawer or anything, but I'd like it if we could be…like, I don't know. Friends, I guess."
He raised an eyebrow skeptically, and she giggled.
"At least friendly," she amended, apparently seeing the fruitlessness of attempting to pursue a friendship with someone as antisocial as he was. "Civil. I can be a pretty easy person to get along with, you know."
Sasuke doubted that fiercely. He'd seen enough of her personality to know that she was temperamental, argumentative, bossy, insecure, and a little bit deranged. All of that clashed violently with the sweet approachability she enacted whenever he did something that pleased her.
She seemed like exactly the type of girl who could get right under his skin if he wasn't careful enough.
But what she was offering was friendship, or at the very least, a mutual armistice. Getting along with this girl was going to be a challenge, but he could agree that it would be easier on both of them if they agreed to be civil to one another. His focus needed to be on school, and that's where he had some common ground with Sakura. He'd seen more than enough medical textbooks in her bookcase to know that, if nothing else, she was an intelligent student.
She offered him her hand with a tentative, almost hopeful smile.
Despite all the misgivings in the world, Sasuke reached out and shook it.
Maybe this wouldn't be such a disaster after all.
"HEY SAKURA!" Ino shouted from the front door. "GET YOUR ASS IN THAT BIKINI, WE HAVE TO CHECK OUT THE POOL BEFORE IT CLOSES!"
And then, flooded with a thousand images of Sakura dressed in a scanty strip of spandex and glistening with pool water and summer sun, he released her hand and stalked back to his room.
Who was he kidding.
This rooming with an unpredictable, gorgeous demonseed from hell had "disaster" written all over it.
note.. Dedicated to Ryan Howard's first-inning grand slam. And not to the embarrassing way the Phillies lost tonight :/. Let me know what you think! LOVE YOU LIKE I LOVE GRAND SLAMS AND THE METS GOING AWAY.
xo Daisygirl