Pairing: SasuSaku

Prompt: books, tests, anger

Relief

Sakura was always stressed out.

"The heart's four chambers…" she would mumble, her nose stuck in her medical text books.

And Sasuke was always irritated. No, not because he loved her or anything, of course.

Just because she was too busy to spar with him. Because she was too busy to ogle over him.

Sasuke and Naruto sat near the same tree, bickering as usual while Sakura sat at the opposite tree, deep in concentration. The three decided to meet up to spar and refine their techniques although evidently there was no training involved at all.

"Guys! Shutup! A girls trying to read here," She said every so often, before returning her attention to the text in front of her again.

Then Naruto whined and Sasuke grunted in disapproval.

"Sakura-chan! Stop reading and let's all train together!" Naruto yelled regardless of the minimum space between Sakura and him. Sakura replied with… well nothing actually. Unusually, she was too absorbed to pay attention to his meaningless little cries.

Naruto shielded his face anyways, just in case.

Although he hated admitting it, Sasuke was bored. Sakura was being so quiet it was eerie. Where had that cheerful attentive face of hers gone to?

When Naruto complained to her yet again, she simply said, "Shishou is testing me on this whole thing tomorrow and I have to master this medical jutsu and-" Sakura breathed. "Well, you get the point." The pinkette was one of the smartest girls in the leaf village, and her medical skills were top-notch. She planned on being an expert doctor and although everyone knew she practically had it in the bag, she still constantly stressed out over it.

"Just take a break," Sasuke said with low, calm voice.

She would blink at him twice, shake her head, stand up and head to the library.

Sakura studied often. But when Sasuke and Naruto finally convinced her to spar with them, she went all out.

Sure, Sakura needed to ace her medic skills but she wouldn't let her strength fall flat either.

And because she was so overly stressed one day, Naruto didn't even dare to face her.

"So, you said you wanted to spar?" Sakura questioned Naruto, smirking while sliding a black glove on. Seeing the angry malicious glint in her eyes, he wisely backed away.

She turned to the other male, and encouragingly breathed, "Sasuke-kun?" He, being a real man, was not afraid of her and her obsessive ways. And so he agreed.

Sakura was crazy, he knew. She was a complete psychopath freak. But she was strong and she was pretty. And so, being with her was okay. Fighting with her was okay.

Except for when she decided to use Sasuke's face as stress relief.

Sasuke touched his swollen cheek, carefully. The chakra-filled punch the red-clothed girl threw on him earlier was devastating. He had been able to avoid every single attack, except for one.

"I'm so sorry Sasuke-kun!" She cried, her hands glowing green and looming over him, unsure of whether or not they should land. Her jade eyes were guilty. "I wasn't thinking, I was just so angry and…"

"Hn," He was embarrassed to make such a rookie mistake. Letting a girl's pretty pink hair and pretty little figure distract you? So un-Uchiha-like.

Her face fell when she saw how angry his voice seemed, "I'm sorry," She spoke softly, wondering why she always hurt the people she loved the most. She started to slowly pump chakra and watched as his jaw began to relax.

His gaze found hers, and it felt smoldering against her. But it grew comforting, as he shifted his weight and motioned for her to halt the process. She led her hands down but to both of their surprise, he grabbed one.

"Do you feel better now?" He said, simply.

Sakura tilted her head skeptically, as if questioning the meaning of his words.

"You were stressed, remember?" Her face lit up immediately at his statement.

She squeezed his hand lightly and spoke, "Oh yeah! I have to go study!"

Quickly she was on her feet, pulling her up with him. She slid her petite hand out of his. She stood up to his height and kissed him softly on his uninjured cheek before skipping away to the library.

Sasuke felt his cheeks grow warm and convinced himself it was just the bruise.

Maybe being Sakura's stress-toy wasn't such a bad thing, after all.

A/N: Teehee

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