Title: Reconciliation
Author: TheTrueAwesomeness
Rating: T-rated (Just because)
Setting: Alternate Universe
Pairings: Sakura X Sasuke
Disclaimer: I do not own the rights to any characters from Naruto. This story, however, is mine.
Summary: More often than not, people make mistakes. When Sakura gets herself a new boyfriend, someone who isn't a certain raven-haired Uchiha, Sasuke realizes that he definitely made a few mistakes, ten to be exact. But he's ready to reconcile. He's ready to make up for all of his mistakes. He's ready to get the girl.
Chapter One: Trinkets and Bombs
Sasuke knew well enough that setting out to make another guy's girlfriend fall in love with him again is taboo, but in his defense, making the pinkette love him like she had loved him when they were younger isn't his major goal. His major goal is righting all those blunders he had accumulated throughout the twenty-three years of his life.
It wasn't his fault her falling for his newly found reconciles and overall Sasuke-ness will be a natural by-product.
Kiba and every other guy vying for Sakura's attention will just have to suck it, because once he has her in his grasp, he wasn't going to let go.
Now all he had to do was make up for all the mistakes he made. The ten wrongs he had committed.
The raven-haired man sighed. He knew this was going to take long, and he was far from being a patient person. But, he was going to have to be if he was going to succeed. And, Kami, did he want to succeed.
He clenched his fists.
Sakura was his.
He looked at both ends of the road in front of his apartment before crossing, his mind wandering as he walked a few blocks down towards the shop he was looking for, ignoring the few females who saw him and immediately stopped in their tracts in the middle of the street, staring and giggling.
He heard a loud horn and girls' squeals as they tried to save themselves from the large truck that approached. Sasuke started feeling annoyed. He didn't need all this attention from random girls on the street.
There was only one girl whose attention he desperately wanted.
Being a genius and as systematic as he was, Sasuke knew that he was going to have to start with his smallest mistakes and go up. Not giving her gifts and trinkets of adoration, that was one of his smaller blunders. Obviously he couldn't start with the mistake he regretted the most - not telling her how much she really meant to him and how much he loved her.
He knew that if he told her out of the blue that he loved her, there were two possibilities. The first was that she'd believe him, but because of that she would shy away from him and shut him out. She'd get hurt because he'd spark some of the feelings she had tried so hard, and finally succeeded in (much to Sasuke's dismay) forgetting; she'd be furious because he was years too late and she's with the stupid dog.
The second possibility would be that she wouldn't believe him. Sakura would just laugh and assume that he was joking. The thought that she would just brush off his affections as a joke left his heart thumping painfully.
That was exactly why he had to give his all in order to win her over, little by little. He had to start small, drop hints. He wasn't going to tell her flat out that he loved her, but he was going to let her know that he was interested.
But in the end, when it was time to tell her that he loved her, how was he going to get her to believe him?
Sasuke had to stop himself from kicking over innocent garbage cans at the side of the road.
How could he let Sakura get over him in the first place? It was incredibly idiotic. And how could Sakura choose that mangy dog of all people?
A thought crossed Sasuke's mind. It wasn't okay that he had to watch Kiba prance around with his Sakura. It made his blood boil just seeing them together. But there was an upside: he was way better than the dog.
Well, of course, he was better, more intelligent and sexier than every man in Konoha. But he, in comparison to the Inuzuka, was lightyears better. This made him smirk.
The sound of tinkling bells greeted the Uchiha as he entered the shop he had never been in before.
"Welcome to the Yamanaka Flower Shop, how may I hel-" Ino paused when she saw who it was that had just entered her family's flower shop. She blinked once, then twice, for once in her life unable to form words with her normally hyperactive mouth. She just stood, transfixed behind the counter, half-gaping at the last person she thought would ever need to buy flowers. Why was he there?
If Sasuke was bothered by the blond's gaping, he did not show it. He instead walked over to a row of flowers whose names he was not familiar with, looking for one flower in particular. It was an ironic fact that a girl whose namesake was a tree that blossomed pink flowers every year was not that fond of receiving them. He remembered her telling him that they were going to die anyway, so she didn't understand why people had to kill them before their natural time of death just to display them for a few days and throw them away once they wilted.
The raven haired man agreed wholeheartedly with her, but saw another flaw in giving Sakura flowers. A flower's main purpose was to be beautiful, and he didn't see what the point was, giving something beautiful to a girl who was infinitely more so.
He remembered though, after she had told him she did not like receiving flowers, she had added a "but" and described a certain species that she admitted she would love to receive. That was exactly why he was there.
"Sasuke," Ino interrupted his thoughts. "What are you looking for? You're in luck because this is the biggest selection of flowers we've had in months, everything's in bloom." She was itching to know who he was buying flowers for, but she knew he wouldn't answer her if she asked, so she might as well make a bargain out of him instead.
Sasuke, already having found the flower that had been described to him, pointed to the basket and said in a nonchalant tone, "This whole basket."
Ino peered around him and almost gasped. The basket her customer pointed at contained the most expensive, and rarest flowers they had: Blue roses. But that wasn't what had surprised her, it was that she knew of only one person who had raved about the roses over and over, stating that it would be such a romantic gesture, receiving a bouquet.
He was buying them for her best friend.
She snapped out of it, unsure, for the first time, of what to do with the information she just received. Was Sasuke trying to court Sakura? Should she tell her that Sasuke had been there? She bent to get the whole basket. It contained exactly 12, and she did her best to make the bouquet personalized just for Sakura. When she was done, she gave Sasuke the bouquet in exchange for his payment.
He was sure she already knew for whom this flowers were intended, just by the way it was prepared, with it's green and pink hues. Before he left, they shared a look, and Ino understood, the raven-haired man was serious. Some form of understanding passed between them, and they both nodded: Ino would keep quiet about Sasuke and his intentions; Sasuke would refrain from breaking Sakura's heart all over again.
The bells tinkled once more.
Sasuke reached the pinkette's house. The lights were off, indicating that she wasn't home. He prayed to Kami that she was at the hospital and not hanging out with the mutt, just the thought had him gritting his teeth. He extracted his keys to Sakura's apartment and entered without any qualms. He put the bouquet in the middle of her living room coffee table, she'd see it as soon as she entered. He didn't want her thinking that the dog she was dating had enough brain cells to actually do something as thoughtful and romantic as buying her the blue roses she had always wanted to receive, so he wrote "Sakura" on the card that came with the bouquet, hoping he'd recognize his handwriting.
He wondered how she'd react when she realized it was from him.
He left the house and headed home, feeling the wait of uncertainty on his shoulders. This was his first move, she would either know and accept what his intentions were, or have an inkling and denied his actions to be anything more than platonic. Sasuke felt his heart pound loudly in his chest. This was his first gesture, and so he made sure that it wasn't that big, else Sakura would get scared off. But he made sure that it was enough for her to know what he meant.
What would she think? Would she hate him? Would she refuse to see him? Would she-
He growled, feeling like a lovesick school boy.
He kept walking and sighed; He was.
Sakura blindly felt for her keys in her bag, eager to get inside her home and have a nice long bath. It had been an incredibly taxing shift at the hospital with more patients than she was used to having. She just wanted to relax.
She succeeded in opening the door and when she turned on the lights. She was surprised to see a bouquet of the most exquisite flowers she had seen in her life. She picked up the bouquet and smelled the blue roses, a small smile graced her lips; she had always wanted to get these. She smiled to herself, not for a second considering that whoever gave her the roses were anyone but her boyfriend Kiba. That is until she saw the card tucked between the ribbons wrapped around the flowers. Her eyebrows knitted together when instead of seeing her name written with the illegible handwriting she knew her boyfriend owned, she saw the elegant script only her best friend could manage.
Her heart stopped.
Sasuke brought her these flowers?
Okay, it's been almost a year since I published the Prologue of this story. Wow. I was procrastinating today, and this is the medium of procrastination that I chose. I dunno how this chapter turned out, to be honest. I don't know why, but I particularly like how Sasuke was so confident at the beginning of the chapter and uncertain at the end. I always appreciate it when Sasuke isn't always high and mighty. Also, this chapter is called Trinkets and Bombs because Sasuke finally dropped the "Bomb" on Sakura that he likes her. HAHAHAHA. So, how was it? I would really appreciate reviews.